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由於競爭環境的變化，使得供應鏈中製造廠商與供應廠商雙方的交易關係(supplier-manufacturer relationship)有了重大的改變，由過去競爭的對立關係，轉變為合作的夥伴關係；中心廠與諸多零配件的供應商形成了一個合作的群聚，來共同滿足買方客戶的需求。台灣中小企業組成的綿密產業網絡便是一個相當好的例證，台灣產業網絡的「彈性」和「速度」特質，使台灣企業能夠在市場急速變化、壓力陡增的情況下，及時進行靈活調適，並整合體系內各種可用的資源，創造特有的競爭優勢。 本研究以個案研究的方式，選擇具動態合作網絡特性的營造業作為母體，來瞭解台灣的營造廠如何建立與維繫一個動態性合作網絡？如何進行網絡成員的分工與連結管理？本研究透過兩個實務個案分析，來瞭解動態合作網絡的分工與連結管理的前因與後果，建立觀念性架構與命題，以作為企業經營業者的參考。 營造廠的「價值活動調整」的取決會受到「環境系絡」、「技術系絡」的影響，當營造廠決定其價值活動涵蓋範疇後，將會面臨價值活動劃分的問題，要在諸多的承包商中選擇合適的對象來負責各式專業工項的執行工作，也就是要進行其「委外對象選擇」的安排，接下來最後就是依據承包商的類型的不同，於此稱之為「網絡關係管理類型」，進行分類管理，最後導致不同的「利潤模式」的選擇。 整體而言，個案公司多年來能在環境景氣循環與競爭壓力的衝擊下，不斷地成長茁壯，核心的概念在於其價值活動涵蓋範疇的動態調整彈性，方能擁有足夠的利潤，持續地追求公司的成長。當環境競爭態勢激烈的時候，就擴大價值活動的涵蓋範圍，將工程進行細部的切割，一方面可以跨過大包商直接發包給小包商，自己進行溝通協調的工作，以降低成本，一方面則可以將專業工項的設計規劃、採購活動等納入公司內部執行，減少外包佔比，提升工程利潤；當環境景氣好，訂單旺的時候，就降低價值活動的涵蓋範圍，發大包給承包商來執行，辛苦費時的整合者利潤讓給承包商，雖然單一工程的整合者利潤降低，但是由於可以承接的工程數目變多了，所以在仲介者利潤的擴大下，獲得利潤的成長。 營造廠的策略彈性，來自於其自身的價值活動調整彈性與承包商網絡的建立與維繫。該價值活動調整的彈性來自於自身能力的強弱與完備性，能力越強越完備的廠商，其價值活動調整的彈性越高；營造廠的能力可以分為整合能力與操作能力兩類，整合能力佳的廠商在價值活動細切給小包商的時候，或者在跨專業工項的承包商間的溝通協調上，會有比較好的績效，如期完成工程，減少成本支出；操作能力好的營造商，除了可以選擇性地決定是否要將專業工項相關的價值活動內製外，增加議價能力外，還可以掌握該相關工項的成本結構，控制成本支出。在承包商網絡的建立與維繫上，多元化承包商網絡的存在，除了可以讓營造廠能夠視工程需要找到合適的承包商外，還可以透過創造群與群間的承包商的相互競爭性，來降低對於單一承包商的依賴程度，也增加了承包商間的選擇彈性。 由於工程設計的差異，工程技術的變遷，營造商必需不斷地透過工程案件的執行，向具夥伴關係的廠商學習特定工項的操作知識與技能，提昇自身的能力，也將該操作知識與技能傳授給具團隊關係的廠商，也帶動整體承包商網絡能力的增長。因而，讓營造廠得以在環境競爭與技術變遷的衝擊下，獲得不斷成長的機會，也創造了與承包商網絡同步成長的機會，而得以避免整體策略彈性喪失的可能性。 最後，不同的網絡關係類型的管理代表著不同的利潤模式的創造思維，營造廠對於會員關係類型的承包商將採取採購成本最小化的模式，之於團隊關係類型的承包商將採取交易成本最小化的模式，夥伴關係類型的承包商則採最大化綜效的模式。 / Duing to the changing of the competitive environment, make the relationship between the manufacturing firm and their suppliers from competitive to cooperative. The manufacturing firm and its suppliers form a cooperative cluster to satisfy the buyer’s requirement. The cooperative network manufacturing firms build become one of the important sources of competitive advantage, therefore it’s a significant issue to the management of the cooperative network. From the practical view, the intensive industrial network organizes by the small and medium size enterprise is the important source of the Taiwan’s manufacturing advantage. The nature of flexibility and speed of Taiwan’s industrial network makes the firms could deal with the fast changing environment, and integrate the available resources of the network to create the unique competitive advantages. The industrial network also play a major role for hundred billion of the foreign exchange reserves in Taiwan, no matter what the traditional industry, such as tailoring, shoes, and machine tool industries or high-tech industry as computer, integrated circuit and electronic industries, the specialization and cooperation between industries is more significant in Taiwan than in other Asia countries, such as in Japan and Korea. Therefore, it’s an important issue to know the manufacturing firms how to build up and maintain their dynamic cooperative network and how to do the job assign and the leakage management among members of network. From the theatrical view, the early researches in the intra-organizational cooperative relationships is focus on the dyadic relationship to explain how the power and trust influence the cooperation, maybe how to gain the competitive advantage based on the relationship further. As we know manufacturing firms will exchange their resources with many suppliers, they always make the strategic decision from the holistic view of the network, not the dyadic view. Miles and Snow (1984) argue that the traditional organization will be disaggregated vertically, the way of integrating all the functions in a single organization will be instead of dividing into many independent firms to execute coordinately. They said that a successful company should integrate and coordinate their network members dynamically to achieve the customer’s need. Recently Bovet and Martha (2000) emphasize the important of building the value creating system to support the customer’s need agilely, the network of value system is different from the production line relationship of traditional supply chain, it start by the customer’s need, the manufacturing firms which interconnected with their suppliers, strategic partners, customers, exchange with the network member to acquire the resources they need, such as economic assets, knowledge, intangible benefits, to satisfy the need of customer (Allee, 2000). This study tries to figure out how the manufacturing firm build up and maintain their network dynamically, how they do the job assignment and linkage management, by case study. The two cases selected from construction industry are suitable to present the dynamic network management, by cooperating the two cases, this study establish the conceptual framework and propositions for the reference of managers.

Global Software Development (GSD) is an emerging trend in today's software world in which teams are geographically dispersed, either in close proximity or globally. GSD provides certain advantages to development companies like low development cost, access to cheap and skilled labour etc. This type of development is noted as a more risky and challenging as compared to projects developed with teams under same roof. Inherently the nature of GSD projects are cooperative in which many software developers work on a common project, share information and coordinate activities. Coordination is a fundamental part of software development. GSD comprises different types of development systems i.e. insourcing, outsourcing, nearshoring, or farshoring, whatever the types of development systems selected by a company there exist the challenges to coordination. Therefore the knowledge of potential challenges, associated threats to coordination and practices to mitigate them plays a vital role for running a successful global project.

In the 21st century, managing outsourced research and development (R&D) processes is critical to an organization's success. Guided by the logistic outsourcing theory developed by de Boer, Gaytan, and Arroyo, the purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies and processes organizational leaders used to manage outsourced R&D to maintain market competitiveness. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 5 purposefully selected business leaders who were responsible for outsourcing R&D in a single Fortune 500 corporation in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Company records were also gathered as data. Yin's 5-step process for a case study and key words in context analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings included 3 main themes: (a) the outsourcing decision-making process with internal and external constraints, (b) the effectiveness of managing outsourcing services and processes, and (c) the influence of outsourcing on business effectiveness and new products. Findings also indicated no practical system to measure effectiveness of outsourced R&D services on market competitiveness. The lack of measurement effectiveness was due to a lack of processes in place to measure R&D performance and no practical approach to measure impact of R&D on market competitiveness. Findings offered insight into strategies used by business leaders to manage outsourced R&D processes. Findings may also have implications for positive social change such as impacting communities through employment, generating government revenues through taxes, and creating a positive impact on job creation in the industries that promote R&D outsourcing.

Firms often stand before decisions on whether to make or buy components. Various well-established theories that have been applied and developed to understand make or buy decisions have also been critiqued for not generating a well-based decision basis. Research indicates that make or buy decisions are more complex than most theories suggest and that theories within make or buy don’t seem to account for situations when the production technology does not exist in-house. In instances of new technology, in this case metal AM, there is a need to understand and account for the case specific attributes to determine the best course of action. This study explores the decision situation of invest to perform internally versus outsourcing of metal additive manufacturing. The aim is to investigate and identify what factors affect the decision. The research design is a qualitative exploratory case study including 10 interviews and a cost analysis of two products, to answer how metal additive manufacturing affects these decisions. The cost analysis is included, as economic performance is a factor of importance, which makes it meaningful to understand in such situations. The most prominent factors in the result are found to be competency, control, economy, interaction, organization and strategy. The results of the study indicate overlapping similarities of the results through existing theories and suggest that these decisions are more complex than the individual application of single theories. However, the cost analysis shows that the currently held outsourcing alternative is more expensive and this might indicate a non-rational decision in regards to the financial perspective. The main contribution of this study is to the field of decision-making with the conclusion of that individual theories are not sufficient to explain the phenomenon of invest to perform internally versus outsourcing. To evaluate these decisions, the results indicate the necessity to have a multi-criteria approach and include several theoretical perspectives.

This research presents the results of a qualitative and quantitative investigation to understand the challenges of public sector facilities management and maintenance to include the negative impact of deferred maintenance, it’s history, the current industry practices and the potential to reverse the negative impact of the current trend. History has been known to speak loudly, and with accuracy relative to the expansion of public facilities and the challenge to maintain them. The challenge to keep pace with the growing population and the ever-changing requirements for contemporary designs are felt in every sector of our public facilities. Regardless, we, the public trust that those responsible are managing these assets effectively and efficiently. Research indicates that this doesn’t appear to be the case. This study serves as a measurement against the historical performance of public facilities management practice. There have been decades of growth in public assets. During that time, innovation within operational practice and technology offer new opportunities for organizations to address issues of efficiency that translate directly in a measure of effectiveness. Given the continued outcry for additional funding, it seems that there are challenges that continue to exist despite the innovation offered. This study focuses on those challenges. Further analysis, based on successful models of public facilities management, provides insights as to what practices, if adopted, may drive the lesser achieving programs toward greater effectiveness. This paper also includes the results of a study that focuses on the current practices of public facilities management programs. The intent is to identify elements that either support or detract from efficiently operated, effective facilities departments. Given the nature of this industry, both objective and subjective elements were addressed. Objectively the organizational hierarchy and the associated communications pathways were identified. Subjectively, the lifecycle of the facilities mission was dissected and discussed throughout an interview process. Fifteen specified data points were addressed, which included questions related to accountability, effective communication, data driven program development, allocation of resources, documentation of work performed, continuous training and education and the use of technology. In order to reverse the declining momentum, we must first identify the most common areas that challenge facilities managers and understand how they currently address those challenges. This research will address the following questions: What do facilities managers perceive to be the greatest obstacles to ensuring their facilities are properly maintained? What factors do facilities mangers perceive to be the greatest challenge to ensuring sufficient resources are allocated to current maintenance? To what degree do facilities managers perceive that more effective communications would positively impact the effectiveness of facilities management and maintenance. The results of this research presents a comprehensive understanding of the challenges that face public sector facilities leadership teams, the history and creation of excessive deferred maintenance and finally, future opportunities that identifies best practices and presents an artifact that reflects a means to resolve those deficiencies identified within the current facilities management environment.

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The manufacturing industry has become very competitive in today's global market environment. Many US companies are faced with the choice of keeping their manufacturing domestic or looking to low cost off-shore countries to take advantage of the labor costs differences. To gain an understanding of the state of manufacturing in China, a major focus in the manufacturing world today, this thesis was undertaken. This thesis presents the findings of research conducted in Guangdong Province, China in June - July, 2005. This research addressed customer focus, leadership and general manufacturing and quality knowledge and practices of small, medium and large sized companies in Guangdong Province, China. Customer focus and leadership are two of the eight fundamental principles of the ISO 9000:2000 family of standards. These two principles, customer focus and leadership, were selected for the foundational role they play in any organization. Companies that are customer focused and have good leadership principles and practices should tend to give quality a priority for the product/service they provide to their customers. The aim of this thesis was to determine if there is a significant difference in the way small, medium and large companies are aligned with these two fundamental principles. Data regarding customer focus, leadership, and general manufacturing and quality knowledge and practices was collected from 41 manufacturing companies in Guangdong Province, China through the use of a survey, interviews and observation. At the conclusion of this thesis, a summary of the findings regarding the aim of the thesis is presented along with a confirmation and questioning of previous research completed.

知識管理是現代最重要的課題之一，企業轉型也在許多實務中證明對組織的成長與獲利很有幫助。然而因為轉型而創新的知識要如何管理，又是如何以知識螺旋的方式融入企業，進而幫助企業創新服務營運內容，則較少為人討論。本研究就是以此為研究動機，發展出的論文。藉由發生在Z公司轉型的過程中知識轉移發展的個案故事，來分析與印證企業在「知識管理」，與「企業轉型」兩方面的變化，如何與「知識螺旋」理論，交互影響的演變過程。 為了探討「知識轉換」的個案故事，本論文分別整理多篇「全球化」，與「知識螺旋」兩方面的重要理論文獻，設計出研究架構。本研究將個案公司企業知識的轉換過程，區分為三大階段; 而每一個歷程包含部份「共同化」、「外化」、「結合」與「內化」因子。企業知識管理上的重點之一，便是在於經理人們，如何能夠有效地調和這個「知識變換螺旋」過程，並將組織的策略資源與知識能力，藉由共同化、內化、外化與結合、轉化與學習而提昇。 經由個案資料與理論的分析與比較，主要的研究發現與結論如下：(1).在商業模式的轉型中，導入外部新資源與新知識，可讓其更迅速轉型並找到新策略。Z公司是企業轉型的最佳典範； (2). Z公司重新定位於「科技服務事業」，與轉型為「全球整合型企業」的創新商業模式，讓公司重新站上高峰；(3)個案A公司利用差異化分析，導入Z公司的經驗，建構新的能力，成就自己成為一個「全球整合型企業」。 最後，由個案故事的分析，本研究發現在「知識轉換」的螺旋中，即使是幫別的公司輔導轉型，也會對於因此學習到或是培養的新知識，經過知識的螺旋，再度轉換成企業本身的新核心能力。 關鍵字：知識螺旋、全球化、企業流程優化、委外加工、模組化、全球整合型企業、轉型、共享式服務中心 / Knowledge management is one of the most important topics in recent years. Business transformation has proved to be useful in the growth of the organization and profit. However, only few studies had focused on how to manage the innovative knowledge and how it is merged into a business through knowledge spiral and thereby helping to expand the business opportunities. This research is based on the case study of the knowledge conversion during a business transformation at company Z and analyzed the mutual effect and its relation with the knowledge spiral theory. The research structure is based on the summary of several key literatures on globalization and knowledge spiral to better understand the knowledge conversion cases. This research has divided the business transformation and knowledge conversion process in company Z into three major phases, and each phase is analyzed by four modules of knowledge transformation model, Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization. One of the key points in business knowledge management is how the managers could cope with the knowledge conversion spiral process and improve the strategic resources with knowledge through the processes of socialization, externalization, internalization and combination. This research concludes that a company could introduce new external resources and knowledge during the business transformation in order to speed up the transformation process and craft a new strategy. Also, company Z repositioned itself as a service science company and then transformed with an innovative business model into a globally integrated enterprise to reclaim its glory. Finally, company A utilized gap analysis tool and introduced the transformation experiences by company Z to establish its own new expertise and become a globally integrated enterprise as well. This research also discovers that a company could also obtain new core comptetence through knowledge spiral by servicing other companies. Keywords: The Knowledge Spiral Theory, Globalization, Business Process Re-engineer, Outsource, Component Business Model, Globally Integrated Enterprise, Business Transformation, Shared Service Center