Determinants and Management of Make-And-Buy: An Extension to Transaction Cost Economics

ISBN-13: 9783834912756 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 215 str.

Anna Krzeminska; Prof Dr Thomas Mellewigt

Opis

Foreword In her dissertation Anna Krzeminska deals with the determinants and the management of make-and-buy decisions. Make-and-buy describes the simultaneous use of in-house prod- tion and external procurement of a good or service. Today make-and-buy can be found in many industries and corporate sectors; the simultaneous use of in-house production and external procurement can, for example, be found in the automotive, telecommunications, and IT industry, as well as in pharmaceutical research-and-development projects, the assignment of sales representatives, and in franchising businesses. Make-or-buy, in contrast, refers to the decision between the alternatives of in-house production versus external procurement (e.g. Boerner and Macher 2002) and has been studied extensively. Studies relating to the ma- and-buy perspective, however, are rare. Anna Krzeminska approaches this gap in the literature in the here presented thesis by investigating determinants, management, and performance implications of make-and-buy. Firstly, Anna Krzeminska reviews the existing research on make-and-buy. She points out that, in spite of a thorough literature research, merely 17 contributions on make-and-buy in the industrial purchasing context could be identified over the last 30 years. Analyzing the existing literature, she discovers an interesting paradox: while there is no evident consensus in the literature on whether transaction cost economics (TCE) is a useful approach to explain ma- and-buy, she finds that TCE is by far the predominant approach used to explain this phe- menon. Against this background she proceeds by systematically scrutinize the potential of TCE to explain make-and-buy.

Spis treści

Logic of Economic Organization; Determinants and Management of Make-and-Buy: Potential TCE Explanations; Extending the TCE Framework; Empirical Survey and Analysis in the German Automotive Industry; Critical Assessment of the Theoretical Framework and of the Empirical Analysis

O autorze

Anna Krzeminska war als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin an den Universitäten Mainz und Paderborn sowie als freie wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin an der Freien Universität Berlin tätig, wo sie bei Prof. Dr. Thomas Mellewigt am Institut für Management promovierte. Als Junior Professorin lehrt und forscht sie derzeit an der University of Technology in Sydney, Australien.

Blurb

While making and buying are usually regarded as being mutually exclusive in extant theory, in reality, making-and-buying is employed in various contexts, such as industrial manufacturing, the media, and clinical trials.

After assessing transaction cost economics as the most important theory of the make vs. buy decision, Anna Krzeminska develops an extension to the TCE framework which spotlights uncertainty as a main explanatory variable. This approach not only allows distinguishing different types of make-and-buy but also enables an explanation of determinants, management mechanisms, and performance implications of each make-and-buy type separately. Empirical analysis with data from the German automotive industry shows predominant support for the hypotheses. Thus, this work contributes to a better understanding of the categorization of economic institutions.