This thesis illustrates a process by which small organizations in the National Park Service can implement minor changes in current management and contracting practices to achieve measurable improvements in economy and efficiency by applying the principles and procedures outlined for competitive sourcing studies in Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 (May 2003).

The innovation of technology and product has made uncertain highly of the beginnings of emerging industry. Smart phone industry belongs to emerging industry. The manufacturers in Taiwan of smart phone include HTC, Quanta, Innopac, Asus, and Arimacomm etc. and HTC is the maximum of shipment of smart phone with Microsoft platform. Therefore, it is necessary that we study the purchasing strategies of smart phone industry. The research methodologies applied to this study are literature review, case study and deep interview. It applies purchasing portfolio model to classify components come from different industries, and it is proposed different purchasing strategies. The conclusions of this study reveal as follows: 1. Early Purchasing Involvement (EPI) will help to get external advanced technology resource so that we can improve the competitive advantage of the corporate in emerging industry. 2. Different purchasing strategies and relationship management can be applied to different component industry and suppliers respectively. 3. The performance evaluation, remediation, and selection of suppliers can be adopted into the management cycle in A company, and the standards will depend on industry environment and the resource A company has.

In this study we explored the relationship between absorptive capacity, knowledge sourcing strategy, alliance forms, and firm performance. Based on the literature and case study, we proposed the concept of knowledge sourcing strategy in alliance contexts, which can be categorized into two types¡Xknowledge internalization strategy and knowledge access strategy. From organizational learning perspective, we argue that a firm¡¦s absorptive capacity has a positive influence on knowledge internalization strategy, and accordingly a firm¡¦s governance choices of alliances are also influenced. Firm¡¦s R&D performance are also included in theoretical model in order to generate further managerial implications. Instead of using conventional regression method, we adopt Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to conduct path-analysis, in that SEM is well suited to verifying causal models. We argue that firms should seek a better alignment between absorptive capacity, knowledge sourcing strategy, alliance forms, and firm performance. Our arguments are supported by empirical analysis of a sample of 148 R&D alliances involving computer, telecommunication, LCD/LED, semiconductor, and electronic machinery industry.

<p>Background:Scholars tend to view global sourcing as a one-way street, whereby multinational manufacturers from developed countries purchase low-cost materials and products from developing countries. Undoubtedly, one of the purchasing bases for them is China because of its abundant resources and cheap labor. That is why China is aptly called the “Global Factory.” Conversely, few Chinese manufactures currently adopt a global sourcing strategy. However, the higher demand for technical quality and an increase in manufacturing cost is driving more Chinese manufacturers to adopt a global sourcing strategy in order to improve their competitive advantage. This would help them to optimize the use of global resources.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is to analyze what problems and challenges Chinese manufacturing companies face in the implementation of a global sourcing strategy.</p><p>Research Method: Our study shall analyze the situation and problems encountered when Chinese manufacturers implement a global sourcing strategy. To achieve this deep understanding we need to perform a qualitative investigation of some Chinese manufacturers. Hence, we chose qualitative research as our methodology of this thesis.</p><p>Conclusion:Pursuing global sourcing is a process which takes a long time and involves many obstacles to be overcome. In this complicated situation, there is not a universal compass to pursue global sourcing. Inexperienced Chinese manufacturers have to deal with each problem in order to develop an advanced level of global sourcing and to face the challenges from logistics capabilities, selecting foreign sources, protectionism, regulations, and so on.</p>

<p>Background:</p><p>What initially caught our attention was the fact that many Swedish manufacturing firms establish production abroad and consequently many jobs are lost. However we decided to go behind the alarming reports of lost jobs, and instead study the subject from the companies’ perspective.</p><p>Purpose:</p><p>The purpose of the thesis is to study why Swedish companies establish production in China and Eastern Europe, how the production in these regions works, and what effects it has had on the company.</p><p>Method:</p><p>A qualitative study was conducted where interviews were performed with six Swedish manufacturing firms. The answers from each interview were then analyzed in order to match the empirical findings to the theoretical framework. A joint analysis was conducted where the answers from the six interviews were compared and analyzed. Finally conclusions were drawn as answer to our purpose.</p><p>Conclusions:</p><p>Our studies show that there are two main reasons for Swedish manufacturing firms to establish production in China and Eastern Europe respectively. These reasons are reduced costs and possibility to produce closer to the market. Keeping the product development in Sweden when producing abroad does not imply any problems as long as regular visits are paid to the plant. These visits are also important in order to maintain the relationships, which seems to be especially important in China. Cultural differences affecting the production exist to a varying extent both in China and Eastern Europe compared to Sweden. Establishing production abroad seems to be successful for most companies.</p>

Bakgrund: Dagens globalisering har möjliggjort en ökad handel mellan länder vilket har inneburit en ökad konsumtion och i sin tur en större negativ miljöpåverkan. Denna miljöpåverkan sker på grund av att produkterna som anskaffas leder till föroreningar genom avlägsna producenter och långa transportsträckor samt genom en icke-miljövänlig produktion. Att se över sina försörjningsstrategier blir alltså allt viktigare och Green sourcing bör övervägas framför traditionella sourcing strategier. Konceptet är relativt nytt och befinner sig fortfarande i utvecklingsfasen där fullständig forskning om Green sourcing saknas. Genom den begränsade forskning som finns inom området kan ett forskningsgap utskiljas då Green sourcing ännu inte utforskats inom offentligheten. Kommunerna har ett ansvar att tillfredsställa det samhälleliga behovet och upprätthålla ordningen. Detta ska de göra och samtidigt ta hänsyn till Lagen om offentlig upphandling och upphandlingsprocess. Dessa två faktorer påverkar kommunernas arbete med Green sourcing då regelverken sätter ramar och begränsningarna för hur arbetet ska gå till. Problemformulering: Hur omsätter offentlig verksamhet Green sourcing i praktiken med avseende på regelverken de måste förhålla sig till? Syfte: Syftet med detta ämnesfördjupande arbete är att identifiera goda exempel på hur kommunerna arbetar med att omsätta Green sourcing i praktiken samtidigt som de förhåller sig till Lagen om offentlig upphandlings regelverk och upphandlingsprocess. Metod: En kvalitativ undersökningsdesign har använts vid denna studie där semistrukturerade telefonintervjuer har genomförts med 5 kommuner. De deltagande kommunerna är Helsingborg, Malmö, Växjö, Älmhult och Örebro kommun. Slutsats: Resultatet visar att det finns en plattform för att arbeta med Green sourcing i offentlig verksamhet med avseende på regelverken de måste förhålla sig till. Samtliga kommuner arbetar med miljöfrågor men de har kommit olika långt för hur de går tillväga för att nå sina hållbarhetsmål. Studien visar att kommunerna genomför flera av aktiviteterna som Green sourcing bygger på, även om de inte arbetar utifrån konceptet som helhet. Goda exempel på hur de omsätter Green sourcing är genom att inkludera miljökrav i sina upphandlingar som ställer krav på leverantörens produktion, produkter och transportslag. De utför själva transportplaneringar i form av samordnade varudistributioner och ruttplaneringar för att minska miljöpåverkan. För att handskas med LOUs bestämmelser genomför kommunerna uppdelningar av upphandlingarna, ställer krav på att leverantören ska ha en verkstad i nära anslutning till kommunen och att produkterna uppfyller samma grunder som en önskad certifiering.

<p>With the extensive use of outsourcing and more frequent technological innovations, global supply chains become vastly stretched and dynamic networks. As a result, firms face increasingly significant challenges to managing their fragile supply networks and responding to more rapidly changing demand evolutions. In this dissertation, we analyze three aspects of these challenges and summarize the findings in three essays. The first essay considers firms' problem of managing social and environmental non-compliance risk at its sub-tier suppliers. We figure out under what circumstances the firms should delegate the sub-tier supplier non-compliance management to its direct suppliers and under what directly control. In the second essay, we analyze the firm's strategy to deal with random demand surges. We develop a new demand model that captures important non-Markov characteristics of possible random demand surge trajectories and derive the optimal safety stock and reactive capacity strategy. Eventually, we establish a useful framework for supply chain planning under a variety of surge demand characteristics (e.g., frequency, intensity, duration, and shape). In the third essay, we examine a dynamic customer-base management problem for a firm with finite capacity, when its customers are prone to disruption and retention risks. We show that the optimal base size is an adding-up-to policy and derive the firm's optimal capacity allocation policy when capacity shortage occurs. In summary, our studies in this dissertation provide useful modeling ideas, decision tools, insights, and guidance for firms to build up resilient supply chains from both the supply and demand sides.</p> / Dissertation

The purpose of this research is to quantify how macro-scale factors such as weather, crop prices, and land conversion affect agricultural water use at the irrigation district level in central Arizona and to understand what constraints and considerations district managers face when making water-sourcing decisions. A conceptual model is developed and econometrically estimated finding that much of the annual variation in total water use for agriculture can be explained by differences in precipitation, cotton prices, and alfalfa prices. Further, results from empirical analysis support the notion that total water use for agriculture has been greatly affected by land conversion from agriculture to other uses. Irrigation district manager interviews indicate that the water sourcing process is very similar across districts in central Arizona and has varied little since 1995, due to common constraints. This research lays an important foundation for future models designed to forecast agricultural water use in central Arizona.

Knowledge is the critical success factor for organizations to compete in the contemporary business world. Organizations that can make full use of their collective expertise and knowledge are likely to be more innovative, efficient and effective in the marketplace. With the development of advanced information and communication technology, organizations are undertaking various knowledge management initiatives to augment traditional ways of knowledge transfer. This dissertation intended to understand how various factors influence knowledge workers' knowledge sourcing behavior in the multimodal knowledge network. More specifically, our research question is: How do task characteristics, knowledge characteristics and individual characteristics influence knowledge workers' channel preferences during their knowledge sourcing activities?We built a knowledge sourcing preference model which predicts knowledge workers' preferences among various knowledge channels. We identified eight important antecedents from a wide spectrum of task characteristics, knowledge characteristics, and individual characteristics. We also identified three representative knowledge sourcing channels: face-to-face communication with colleagues, knowledge repositories, and discussion forums. We developed eight hypotheses on how each of the antecedent influence channel preferences.We tested our hypotheses through a survey we conducted in an international information technology company. Out of the eight hypotheses, the hypotheses on the influences from knowledge codifiability, knowledge volatility, extroversion/introversion dimension of the personality, and reciprocation wariness are supported. The hypotheses on the influences from task interdependency and task urgency are partially supported. The hypotheses on the influences from task routineness and expertise are not supported.This study furthers our understanding of knowledge workers' knowledge sourcing behavior in a multimodal knowledge network. The results of this study help organizations understand the advantages and disadvantages of various sourcing channels under certain circumstance of tasks, knowledge, and individuals. With this understanding, organizations will be able to have reasonable expectations on the utilization of knowledge transfer approaches, and to improve the effectiveness of the knowledge transfer initiatives. This will enable the organizations to cultivate environments or design systems to develop the types of channels to accommodate the preferences of knowledge workers with various combinations of tasks, knowledge and individual characteristics.

Problem: Disasters cause massive destruction and their occurrence (even though declining since the last years) is still a topic of high actuality. To mitigate their negative impacts, in particular humanitarian organizations put a lot of effort into helping nations and people to recover from disasters by providing relief commodities. Responding adequately to a disaster is difficult due to its highly complex and uncertain nature. Flexible but efficient supply chains are needed, which makes high demands on procurement operations. Within disaster relief logistics, procurement accounts for 65 % of total expenditures. Despite its significance, literature does not specifically focus on problems related to disaster relief procurement, which creates the need to examine this topic further, from theory as well as from practice. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze sourcing policies, currently applied by the largest humanitarian organizations in the field of disaster relief. Method: This thesis conducted a descriptive and exploratory study of the literature in order to create a framework for a content analysis. During the content analysis, 108 officially published reports of the 14 biggest humanitarian organizations (concerning their annual budget) were investigated concerning their procurement policies in disaster response operations. Hence, this study uses a qualitative approach for a cross-sectional analysis of secondary data. Conclusions: The findings of this paper present an overview of currently applied procurement concepts in disaster response. The compilation of a comprehensive sourcing toolbox allows the classification of sourcing policies. The results show a tendency, that similar procurement policies are applied in the largest humanitarian organizations regarding the area of sourcing or the number of suppliers. A lack of awareness and/or transparency was discovered regarding environmentally friendly procurement policies. The application of ethical procurement (social factors) is however highly emphasized by the organizations. An unexpected discovery was the importance of long-term agreements and the frequent application of tendering processes for supplier selection. Further research opportunities lie in the field of demand tailored sourcing instead of pre-stocking to reduce inventory costs or in the comparison of sourcing practices applied in big and small organizations. To sum up, humanitarian organizations not only focus on quick deliveries, also quality and cost efficiency are increasingly paid attention in the field of disaster response procurement.