: Outsourcing har blivit en mycket vanlig företeelse i det moderna samhället och textilbranschen anses vara den geografiskt mest spridda industrin i världen med produktion oftast belägen i Asien. Outsourcing till trots finns det fortfarande vissa moment i värdekedjan som i stor utsträckning utförs i butik i Sverige trots att i stort sett alla andra tillverkande och sammansättande moment utförs i fabrik i låglöneländer. Ett av dessa moment är larmning av varor. Syftet med studien är att undersöka och beskriva hur larmning av konfektionsplagg går till i svenska A-läge butiker samt analysera om förflyttningen av momentet bakåt i värdekedjan skulle kunna påverka detaljhandelns tidsbudgetering och lönsamhet. Frågeställningarna för studien är: På vilket sätt påverkar larmningsmomentets placering i värdekedjan butikens tidsbudgetering? Samt: Hur påverkas butikers lönsamhet av att larmningsmomentet förflyttas bakåt i värdekedjan? Den empiriska studien är indelad i tre delar; kvantitativa observationer i form av tidsstudier utförd hos tre butiker; kvalitativa intervjuer med sex tillfrågade butikschefer; samt kvalitativa intervjuer med huvudkontor från valda modeföretag. Tidsstudien har visat att larmningsmomentet av ett plagg i genomsnitt tar 7,7 sekunder. I ett presenterat exempel där en butik tar emot 4 000 plagg i veckan blir det totalt 8,6 timmar som i en butik lägger på larmningsmomentet per vecka. Studien har visat att om larmningsmomentet skulle outsourcas från butik till fabrik skulle tidsbudgeteringen i butik kunna omfördelas så att mer tid läggs på varumärkesbyggande åtgärder som integrerad informationsflöde från detaljist till huvudkontor, kundservice, försäljning samt vård av butik och lager. De insparade timmarna skulle också kunna tas bort från budgeten om butiken önskade, vilket inneburit en direkt kostnadsbesparing. I analysen presenteras ett exempel baserat på tidsstudien där de 8,6 timmar som läggs på larmningsmomentet multipliceras med en uppskattad personalkostnad per timma. Kvantifierat till ett år och med 100 butiker i fokus blev besparingen så stor som 8 452 100 kr för en butikskedja, förutsatt att inga oanade kostnader skapades. Studien har därmed kunnat visa att förflyttningen av larmningsmomentet bakåt i värdekedjan kan minska butikers kostnader och därmed påverka företagets Vinstmarginal (VM) och i förlängningen skulle det kunna generera högre Räntabilitet på Totalt Kapital (RTOT), även om det är med en hundradels eller tusendels procentenhet. / Program: Textilekonomutbildningen

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The attitudes of employees are key for ensuring the productivity and sustainability of an organisation. The present research aimed to explore obstacles and facilitators of positive team functioning in an offshore environment. Preliminary identification of obstacles and challenges to effective teamwork was achieved through an interview with two senior Human Resource managers at a large international bank, the primary location of which is in Australia. From this information, a survey was developed and distributed to members of an offshore Human Resource (HR) service centre consisting of 100 staff members, responsible for HR operations and described as an ‘extension’ or ‘captive’ team. An interview with management revealed that the effectiveness and sustainability of the current offshore team were of particular interest. Consideration of these issues and research into the effectiveness of virtual and captive teams led to a focus on organisational identity, work engagement, climate, trust, recognition from management, technology support, reliability of technology and goal clarity. Goal clarity and technology support were significant predictors of work engagement; low integration, goal clarity, technology support, reliability of technology and recognition from management were significant predictors of organisational identity. Thus, in an offshore environment, clear goals and the ability to complete those goals through use of efficient technologies are vital. This should impact the type of training given to offshore team members as well as the amount of technology support that is available to them.

Es gibt seit mehreren Jahren eine angeregte Diskussion über Wohl und Übel der Globalisierung beziehungsweise der Internationalisierung von Wertschöpfungsketten. Handelspolitische Empfehlungen basieren häufig auf theoretischen Modellen, welche meist positive gesamtwirtschaftliche Wohlfahrtseffekte der Globalisierung prognostizieren. Allerdings verwenden die Standardmodelle oft relativ unrealistische Annahmen bezüglich der Mobilität der Arbeitskräfte. Mit Mobilität ist hier nicht die regionale Mobilität gemeint (welche ebenfalls nicht als perfekt angenommen werden sollte), sondern intersektorale Mobilität (Mobilität zwischen verschiedenen Wirtschaftszweigen) und intrasektorale Mobilität (Mobilität zwischen verschiedenen Berufen). Dabei geht es nicht allein um monetäre Kosten, wie sie durch Umzug oder eine Weiterbildung entstehen, sondern auch um nicht-monetäre Wohlfahrtsverluste. Nicht monetäre Wohlfahrtsverluste können zum Beispiel dadurch verursacht werden, dass eine Person nicht den von ihr erlernten Beruf ausüben kann oder sich an unattraktive Arbeitszeiten gewöhnen muss. Ziel der Arbeit soll es sein, aufzuzeigen, welche Konsequenzen sich aus der zunehmenden Internationalisierung von Wertschöpfungsketten für die gesamtwirtschaftliche Wohlfahrt, Lohnhöhe und Einkommensverteilung ergeben. Dabei spielt die Mobilität der Produktionsfaktoren eine bedeutende Rolle für die Anpassungsfähigkeit einer Volkswirtschaft. Es ist zu erwarten, dass geringe Mobilität zu kurzfristigen Wohlfahrtsverlusten für wenigstens einen Teil der Arbeitskräfte eines Hochlohnlandes führen kann. Zunächst soll diese Fragestellung anhand aktueller theoretischer Modelle beleuchtet werden. Da diese statischen Modelle relativ unrealistische Annahmen bezüglich der Mobilität des Faktors Arbeit treffen, soll auf Basis von Daten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland aus dem Zeitraum von 1975 bis 2004 die tatsächliche intersektorale Mobilität sowie die intrasektorale Mobilität des Faktors Arbeit differenziert nach dem Qualifikationsniveau der Arbeitskräfte geschätzt werden. Unter Verwendung der Ergebnisse dieser Untersuchung soll eines der zuvor dargestellten Modelle dynamisiert werden um die Arbeitsmarktimplikationen verschiedener Schocks vor dem Hintergrund internationalisierter Wertschöpfungsketten zu identifizieren.

In the realm of globalization, international sourcing of services contributes to reshape firm’s value chains as the physical dispersion of these activities increases. This reorganization does not simply lead to the replication of domestic activities in a destination providing resource advantages, but, in most cases, it implies profound modifications of the flows of activities, including the reconsideration of the boundaries of the firm. Global sourcing strategies, also called offshoring, seek to increase firm’s efficiency by combining the exploitation of foreign locational advantages with process redesign. When aggregated, these firm-level strategies translate into considerable international exchanges to a point that flows of intermediate services represent about 73% of the total of international trade in services for 2005 (OECD, 2009). These activities present a high degree of heterogeneity in terms of functions concerned, the related domestic industries, motivations, destinations, organizational structure or scope. This wave of internationalization, because of its relative novelty, growth and rapid diversification, draws the interest from the public, political and academic spheres but the comprehension of the determinants shaping the configuration and organization of these activities still remain largely unknown. Based on four essays, this PhD thesis addresses the impact of host-country characteristics and distance factors on the configuration of international sourcing activities in the dimensions of location, governance model and scope of activities.<p><p>The first paper studies the country-specific determinants of the interdependent choices of destination and governance model in the global sourcing of services. I explore the simultaneity of these decisions and I jointly estimate their determinants using implementation-level data. Derived from comparative advantages, host-country uncertainty and the global dispersion of tasks, I present three classes of factors driving global sourcing configurations: resource arbitrages, host-country risk and communication barriers. Empirical results confirm that locations with resource or capabilities advantages specific to services – low labour cost, education and labour supply – attract more offshoring activities. However the pursued resource advantages differ depending on the governance model. Country attractiveness for captive implementations presents a higher positive sensitivity to the education-intensive resources, while outsourcing strategies have a greater cost-cutting orientation coming from labour cost arbitrages. Furthermore, the risks inherent to the host-country, in the form of weak formal institutions and inexperience in the destination, have the dual effect of deterring location attractiveness, while they foster the adoption of the outsourcing model compared to the captive one. Communication barriers coming from geographic distance, cultural and linguistic differences have the simultaneous effect of discouraging global sourcing in those locations while, to overcome these constraints, firms favor higher integration with the use of captive models. <p><p>This second paper further explores the mechanisms through which home-host country distances affect the choice of governance mode in service offshoring. Using a Transaction Cost Economics approach, I explore the comparative costs of the hierarchical and contractual models to show that different dimensions of distance (geographic, cultural and institutional), because they generate different types of uncertainties, impact offshore governance choices in different ways. Empirical results confirm that, on the one hand, firms are more likely to respond to internal uncertainties resulting from geographic and cultural distance by leveraging the internal controls and collaboration mechanisms of a captive offshore service center. On the other hand, they tend to respond to external uncertainties resulting from institutional distance by limiting their foreign commitment and leveraging the resources and local experience of third party service providers. Finally, I find that the temporal distance component (time zone difference) of geographical dispersion between onshore and offshore countries plays a dominant role over the spatial distance component.<p><p>The third section then concentrates on the impact of the institutional environment (regulative) on international sourcing activities. To exploit country-specific advantages, firms that source activities from abroad are forced to integrate the institutional environment into the choice not only of host-country, but also of governance model for their offshore activities. Considering inefficient institutions as drivers of transaction costs, this conceptual paper explores the impact of the host-country regulative environment in the interdependent decisions of country selection and governance model (captive or outsourcing) in firms’ global sourcing strategies. I consider two classes of assets: transferred assets for knowledge/information flows, and local assets sourced from the host location. I show that each class involves specific institutional risks for offshoring practices. In turn, because of the different institutional exposures of the captive model and the outsourced one, the institutional risks associated with transferred and local assets have different implications for the choice of governance model. Firms react to institutional risks relative to transferred assets by internalizing their activity, but they bypass inefficient institutions for local assets using outsourcing. Based on the interaction of the institutional risks relative to each class of assets, I then obtain sufficient conditions that give the firm-optimal combinations of country selection and governance model.<p><p>The last section studies how firm-level and country-level risks affect the scope of the process operated in the foreign unit. To prevent appropriation hazard for proprietary content, firms choose a particular disaggregation of the value chain. We argue that, in response to the lack of control offered by internalization and the lack of protection provided by host-country institutions for protecting proprietary content, firms reduce the scope of their activities. In other words, they exploit existing complementarities between the tasks of their value chain using a higher disaggregation of their process and therefore reducing appropriation value for outsiders. Based on a sample of 750 international sourcing projects, regression results on the scope of offshore activities confirm that firms prefer to source discrete tasks rather than entire processes when they lack the protection of internalization and external institutions. In addition, experience modifies these relationships. On the one hand, inexperienced firms do not rely on this slicing mechanism to prevent the loss of control implied by an outsourcing model. On the other hand, the effect of weak institutional protection is perceived as more stringent for inexperienced firms. When host-country institutions are deficient, these firms, compared to the experienced ones, have a higher propensity to operate discrete tasks rather than entire processes.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This dissertation describes the significance of offshoring in today's global economy, its impact on supply chain management and the role of the Czech Republic as a destinantion for manufacturing and services offshoring. It depicts the development of offshoring in the Czech Republic, its advantages and disadvantages, trends for the future and compares the Czech Republic with its biggest competitors. It utilizes studies by international consultancy firms and OECD.

This paper is directed at discussing some of the management issues, problems and solutions of logistics in the context of offshored productive activities The introduction includes a discussion of the logistics topics and an introduction of the economic logic of offshoring. The main part analyses the logistics topics with regard to the internationally fragmented production. The topics of logistics include: Information flow and integration, transportation, inventory management, warehousing and materials management, packaging management, customer service, risk management, logistics strategies and supply chain design. For each of the discussed topics a company or industry example is given to illustrate the applications. The analysis is based on a review of the existing academic literature in each of these fields.

The Master Thesis deals with offshoring and its logistic requirements. The first part of thesis characterizes terms as outsourcing, offshoring and offshore outsourcing. The main reasons for foreign production are seeking of resources (typically low cost labour) and expansion into new markets. Benefits and risks of offshoring are analyzed in the thesis, as well as criteria for selection of suitable host destination. Often overlooked impacts of globalization on integrated supply chain are also considered in this thesis. Central and Eastern Europe is one of important offshoring regions. CEE offers relatively cheap and qualified labour. However, its main benefit is its small geographical distance from Western Europe. The costs of servicing markets at Western Europe from CEE are much lower compared to servicing these markets from Asia.

Characteristics of national cultures have frequently been claimed to influence service quality perception and customer satisfaction. This inquiry investigates this claim by analysing a multinational company’s call centre servicing two markets across national borders. Hypotheses are derived which relate the cultural and customer characteristics of age, gender and socio-economic status to customer satisfaction and perceived service quality within each country.Using multiple regression and CHAID models as well as Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests, the hypotheses are tested by analysing call centre service feedback data on 245 customers in the South African and 201 customers in the British market. Empirical support for the effect of national culture on perceived service quality and customer satisfaction is found.Empirical proof that females report higher levels of satisfaction than males is found while the importance customers place on service quality constructs are proven to vary by age and gender. A call centre management model integrating culture and customer characteristics, which provides a richer perspective of the mechanics of value creation, is suggested. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Due to the global nature of business, the dispersion of international geographical activities has increased and location decision-making has become a critical strategic decision for companies. Recent research, on the other hand, has begun to report on an opposite movement. Pandemics, dramatic weather disasters, political conflict, and cyber-attacks are all examples of shocks that can disrupt global value chain-based manufacturing.  The reshoring of production is a hot topic in recent EU policy debates, both because of supply shortages due to the COVID-19 pandemic and because of geopolitical changes. Despite increasing attention to the manufacturing location, the lack of empirical studies on this phenomenon, especially to return activities to high-cost countries such as Sweden, is clearly visible. With a qualitative method, the purpose of this study is to create a deeper understanding of reshoring in the Swedish context. Focuses is mainly on the drivers and barriers, as well as a company's expectations of reshoring and their challenges to implementing the decision. Secondary data is in the form of literature review and related surveys to gain knowledge of the phenomenon. In addition, primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews with two Swedish manufacturing firms that decided to reshore. In this research, a deductive approach is used in which existing theories, mainly in the field of international business, are used to analyze empirical data. Secondary data cited labor costs in Sweden as one of the main offshore factors and the development of technologies such as automation, quality, and flexibility as reasons for the reshoring. In the primary data of this research, some other factors such as a focus on core competencies and using another country's experience/resources, as an offshore's reason besides social matters and having a sustainable strategy as a reshore's reasons were highlighted. Regarding expectation and challenges, awareness of problems such as decreasing company flexibility and increasing the lead time before offshore decisions by both companies, besides the perception of the challenges of implementing a reshore decision with an appropriate long-term plan to address them, reflects their comprehensive view of their strategic decision.