The boundaries of the firm revisited

Holmström, Bengt; Roberts, John

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511817410.014

Cited by 123 publications

(168 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In contrast, cooperation failures occur when interdependent individuals face conflicting incentives; these failures are manifested as holdup, shirking, and possibly other forms of opportunistic behavior (Alchian and Demsetz 1972, Klein et al 1978, Williamson 1979. Scholars across a range of disciplines note that coordination failures can occur even when incentives are fully aligned (Camerer 2003, Grant 1996, Heath and Staudenmayer 2000, Holmstrom and Roberts 1998, March and Simon 1958, Schelling 1960, Simon 1947.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Firm as a Coordination System: Evidence from Software Services Offshoring

Srikanth

Puranam

2014

Organization Science

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T o examine what, if any, are the differences in how activities are coordinated within versus between firms, we conducted interviews with 32 project managers regarding 60 projects in the offshore software services industry. Uniquely, our projects were sampled along two dimensions: (1) colocation versus spatial distribution and (2) delivery by groups of individuals from a single firm versus from multiple firms. Our evidence suggests that in colocated projects, the same broad categories of coordination mechanisms are used both within and between firms. However, there is a qualitative difference in how geographically (i.e., spatially) distributed projects are coordinated within versus between firms. Distributed projects conducted within firms rely extensively on tacit coordination mechanisms; such mechanisms are not readily available in between-firm projects that are spatially distributed. This difference may arise because of the lack of shared history and lack of enforcement through common authority in the between-firm context.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Firm as a Coordination System: Evidence from Software Services Offshoring

Srikanth

Puranam

2014

Organization Science

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“…In the transaction costs line of research, Williamson (1975Williamson ( , 1981) made important theoretical contributions, which have been empirically justified by various others (e.g., Hennart, 1988;Walker and Weber, 1984). In recent years resource-based arguments have been added to the explanation of outsourcing (Barney 1999;Leiblein, Reuer, and Dalsace, 2002;Marshall, McIvor, and Lamming, 2007) as have real options (Leiblein, 2003), agency (Holmström and Roberts, 1998) and industrial organisation arguments (Shy and Stenbacka, 2005). Thus a fairly good understanding has emerged as to what drives the decision to outsource, or integrate, a specific activity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outsourcing and financial performance: A negative curvilinear effect

Kotabe

Mol

2009

Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management

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This study asks how a firm's degree of outsourcing across all activities influences financial performance. We argue there is an optimal degree of outsourcing, where firms outsource some activities yet integrate others, and that deviations lower performance in a negatively curvilinear fashion. We find empirical support, using 1995 and 1998 data on a sample of manufacturing businesses in the Netherlands, and show that the steepness of the curve increases under conditions of high uncertainty. We show the magnitude of the uncertainty effect on performance outcomes through a post hoc scenario analysis. Thus we provide a specific, theoretically and empirically grounded prediction of how outsourcing affects performance with implications for theory and practice.

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“…Old ones endure in as much that cleavages are overlapped and compacted into a cohesiveness, an assemblage of various sides and sites of difference. Thus the boundary around a corporation links up various transactions and markets to create an entity -the firm (Holmström & Roberts 1998). The border around a territory is created by linking up various localities of difference, various frontiers of opposition.…”

Section: Tollerationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fate of Territorial Engineering: Mechanisms of Territorial Power and Post-Liberal Forms of International Governance

Thompson

2007

Int Polit

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Does there exist a genuine threat to the continuation of a broadly liberal international (and domestic) order, driven by the re-emergence of religious and secular fundamentalisms? This paper assesses this issue in the context of, first the rise of territorial power and then its fate in a period of globalization and the revival of religious intolerance. The twin concepts of sovereignpower and bio-power are deployed to investigate the emergence of territorial engineering in the 18 th century. A key feature of modern fundamentalisms is that they promote and trade-off the deterritorialization of social, political, cultural and economic activity. It is argued that this is a manifestation of a new form of 'spiritual martial power'. The risks associated with these developments should not be over-exaggerated but they exists nonetheless. If this is the case, the problem becomes one of how to re-territorializes the activities and disputes engendered by this reappearance and re-emergence of spiritual martial power with its link to religious fundamentalism. Here the argument is that this requires a re-examination of the nature of international borders, and indeed a re-emphasis on their role, not just in respect to containing disorder and restoring the capacity for governance, but also as a way of re-configuring international toleration and of righting a wrong.

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The boundaries of the firm revisited

Cited by 123 publications

References 29 publications

The Firm as a Coordination System: Evidence from Software Services Offshoring

The Firm as a Coordination System: Evidence from Software Services Offshoring

Outsourcing and financial performance: A negative curvilinear effect

The Fate of Territorial Engineering: Mechanisms of Territorial Power and Post-Liberal Forms of International Governance

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