SummaryThe focus of many European and American companies is currently on "modular"strategies in product design and production. A modular product has individualelements which are designed independently but function together as a seamless whole.In this article Mari Sako and Fiona Murray compare...

This paper analyses the implications of combining direct and representative forms of workerparticipation for business performance. Direct participation refers to such things as quality controlcircles, continuous improvement teams and other problem-solving groups, while representatweparticipation...

What factors facilitate and constrain the sustained development and replication of organizational capabilities at suppliers? This question is addressed in a comparison of historical case studies at Toyota, Nissan and Honda in Japan. First, as expected, replication difficulty is overcome by...

Alfred Chandler attributed the rise of the vertically integrated corporation in the twentieth century to improvements in transportation and communication. In contrast, many have argued that further advances in transportation and communication have made vertical integration obsolete in recent...

This article analyses the demand side of business services outsourcing. Using insights from a number of bodies of literature, the article interprets business services outsourcing as corporate restructuring involving the administrative functions of the firm. Propositions are developed around the...

This paper poses the question ‘Do Industries Matter?’ in order to shed light on what observation-based Industry Studies researchers can offer empirical economists using large-scale datasets. I argue that industries matter from three distinct perspectives. First, the methodological approach...

Supply Chains are increasingly global. Consequently, we pour energy into managing existing global supply chains efficiently, with their risks (for example, risks arising from geographic dispersion) and rewards (such as the benefits derived from cost arbitrage). Yet we do not know enough about...

Choosing between outsourcing and shared services has significant implications for long-term corporate strategy.

Does the trend toward standardization and modularization of professional services make outsourcing inevitable?