Global Sourcing of Services: Risk, Process, and Collaborative Architecture

Modeling the enablers of sourcing risks faced by startups in COVID-19 era

Purpose

Startups across all sectors are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and are facing a formidable challenge in terms of marketing and operations. Most of the startups have experienced a downturn in demand and supply due to COVID-19 led disturbances in sourcing networks. This paper aims to identify, analyze and categorize the significant risks influencing sourcing operations in startups during the COVID-19 era in India, using the total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) approach.

Design/methodology/approach

Eight enablers were identified through literature review and expert opinions from various startups in India. This study adopted the TISM approach to analyze the inter-relationships between the enablers. Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) analysis was used to rank the sourcing risk enablers and classify them as autonomous, independent, linkage and dependent enablers.

Findings

The results indicate “insufficient fund” as the most critical enabler. Network issues and employee flexibility risk were among the other critical enablers that have a high driving power. Supplier risk, quality risk and demand risk were found to have highly dependent on other enablers for implementation.

Research limitations/implications

This study mainly focuses on the sourcing risks in startup operations in India. This study can be extended to many other countries.

Practical implications

This study will help startup industry managers and practitioners understand the interactions of enablers and identify critical enablers to mitigate risks in startup sourcing operations in the COVID-19 era.

Originality/value

The present study identifies the sourcing risk enablers in the COVID-19 era. It is the first attempt to analyze the interrelationship among sourcing risks in startups using the TISM approach.

The Relationship Between Architectural Modularity and Platform Scale Up Performance: The Moderating Effects of Strategic Flexibility and Technology Turbulence

The emergence of digital platforms has had a deep impact on the way firms design and position their products. An open architecture is a key to successfully scale up platforms in terms of usage. Architectural modularity is an important feature that facilitates openness of platforms. Successful scaling of platforms needs a digital infrastructure layer that facilitates collaboration and creation and hence the role of modular systems in the development of platform ecosystems has increased substantially. In this paper, we study the relationship between modular architectures and platform scale up performance from a survey data of managers in the semiconductor industry with 232 data points. The findings from our study show that the scale-up performance of platforms has an inverted U-shaped relationship with modularity. We also find that the strategic flexibility of firms positively moderates this relationship.

The degree of flexibility that system architecture should have is not only an important technical decision but is important from a business perspective as well. Ambiguity in terms of interfaces and the functionality of modules reduces the possibility of ex-ante specification of contracting terms and incentives and monitoring of incentives. The link between architectural modularity and the relationship to performance is important as this enables us to examine questions related to the success of task partitioning at an industry level.

Information Technology Outsourcing Chain: Literature Review and Implications for Development of Distributed Coordination

The paper aims to analyse how the management science literature explains sustainable coordination and management of Information Technology (IT) outsourcing chains. The IT outsourcing theories,—that is, transaction cost theory, theory of agency, resource based view, activity based theory, contractual theory, partnership and alliance theory and stakeholder theory—are applied as a background to the analysis. A systematic literature review reveals that IT outsourcing is developed in collaborative networks and chains. There are some mechanisms identified in the literature for outsourcing chains’ management, interchain sustainability, coordination and interchain activities’ cohesion. The complexity of outsourcing relationships presented among outsourcers and outsourcees stimulate looking for new business models. Furthermore, outsourcing chains research would benefit from considering strategy-based theoretical discussions, relationship modelling and project management. The literature survey aims to present outsourcing chains in different aspects, that is, dynamics and agility, communication in chains, compensation and compliance, contracting, stakeholders, decision making models, governance problems, integration, performance measurement, project management and strategy development. This paper intends to emphasize that interchain coordination can be improved by enterprise architecture modelling as well as by the application of blockchain economy.

Boundary Spanners in Global Partnerships

Western companies’ outsourcing of projects to emergent markets is increasingly being replaced by strategic partnerships that require close collaboration between clients and vendors. This study focuses on interorganizational boundary-spanning activities in the context of global information technology (IT) development projects from the rare perspective of Indian vendor managers in one of the world’s largest IT service companies. It draws on a qualitative study of a collaborative partnership and focuses on the key boundary spanners who are responsible for developing trustful and sustainable client relationships and coordinating highly complex projects. We analyze vendor managers’ narratives of their collaboration with a European client in a long-term project, which is presented as a strategic partnership in an outsourcing 3.0 mode. The study offers a rich and conceptualized account of those managers’ boundary-spanning activities and a context-sensitive understanding of their boundary work. The study applies Bourdieu’s concept of capital (economic, cultural, social, and symbolic) not only in its analysis of the two powerful partners but also in its discussion of the boundary-spanning activities that are reported. The analysis demonstrates the coexistence of transactive and transformative modes of collaboration in the studied case. It reveals both the importance of partner status and the impact of that status on the forms of boundary-spanning activities in which the partners engage. Finally, this study suggests new research questions that will promote an understanding of both transactive and transformative boundary spanning and the reciprocity of boundary-spanning activities between vendor and client in a global collaborative partnership.