Multi-Criteria Partner Selection in Virtual Organizations

Abstract

Virtual organization partner selection has recently attracted the attention of researchers from various fields. The need for partner selection arises when a broker (e.g., Katzy & Dissel, 2001) identifies a collaboration opportunity and is willing to form a virtual organization (VO). Several researchers have suggested that a pool of proactively cooperating organizations would be an efficient platform for creating VOs (Lau & Wong, 2001; Camarinha-Matos & Afsarmanesh 2003; Tølle & Bernus, 2003). Here, we follow the terminology of Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003), who call this pool a virtual organization breeding environment (VBE). The idea is that a VBE provides a common structure for repeated VO creation, hence decreasing the costs related to ad hoc VO creation. Such a VBE structure includes, for instance, a common ICT infrastructure, contract templates and decision-support tools for agile VO creation.

A strategic model for agile virtual enterprise partner selection

“…AVEs evolved from these network organization concepts. They are an alliance of independent business processes or enterprises with each contributing “core competencies” in areas such as, design, manufacturing, and distribution to the network (Byrne and Brandt, 1993; Camarinha‐Matos et al , 2003; Camarinha‐Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2005; Goranson, 1999; Iacocca Institute, 1991; Jarimo and Salo, 2006; Porter, 1993, Presley et al , 2001; Sheridan, 1996; Sarkis, 2001; Talluri et al , 1999). AVEs are formed in the event of a market opportunity and would be dissolved when the opportunity passes.…”

“…There are also functioning European AVEs, such as CeBeNetwork GmbH (www.cebenetwork.com, accessed 2006) (Jarimo and Salo, 2006) and Virtual Teaming in the UK automotive industry (Bal and Gundry, 1999). As of early 2007, CeBeNetwork GmbH consists of 27 organizations forming a highly sophisticated network of professionals specializing in full service packages for the entire engineering process in the automobile and rail industries, mechanical engineering as well as the aircraft industry.…”

“…Relationship theory has been considered as a way to filter the numerous possibilities of potential partners down to a manageable number of potential partners to assess. Partnering, strategic alliances, and AVEs form a spectrum of relationships that may exist among enterprises (Camarinha‐Matos and Afsarmanesh, 2005; Jarimo and Salo, 2006; Meade et al , 1997; Sarkis and Sundarraj, 2002).…”