The Long-Term Irrelevance of Trust in Outsourcing Decisions for New Technologies: Insights from an Agent-Based Model

Significant empirical data from the fields of management and business strategy suggest that it is a good idea for a company to make in-house the components and processes underpinning a new technology. Other evidence suggests exactly the opposite, saying that firms would be better off buying components and processes from outside suppliers. One possible explanation for this lack of convergence is that earlier research in this area has overlooked two important aspects of the problem: reputation and trust. To gain insight into how these variables may impact make-buy decisions throughout the innovation process, the Sporas algorithm for measuring reputation was added to an existing agent-based model of how firms interact with each other throughout the development of new technologies. The model�s results suggest that reputation and trust do not play a significant role in the long-term fortunes of an individual firm as it contends with technological change in the marketplace. Accordingly, this model serves as a cue for management researchers to investigate more thoroughly the temporal limitations and contingencies that determine how the trust between firms may affect the R&D process.

Competition and innovation : independent production in the Chinese TV industry

Independent television production is recognised for its capacity to generate new kinds of program content, as well as deliver innovation in formats. Globally, the television industry is entering into the post-broadcasting era where audiences are fragmented and content is distributed across multiple platforms. The effects of this convergence are now being felt in China, as it both challenges old statist models and presents new opportunities for content innovation. This thesis discusses the status of independent production in China, making relevant comparisons with independent production in other countries. Independent television production has become an important element in the reform of broadcasting in China in the past decade. The first independent TV production company was registered officially in 1994. While there are now over 4000 independent companies, the term „independent. does not necessarily constitute autonomy. The question the thesis addresses is: what is the status and nature of independence in China? Is it an appropriate term to use to describe the changing environment, or is it a misnomer? The thesis argues that Chinese independents operate alongside the mainstream state-owned system; they are „dependent. on the mainstream. Therefore independent television in China is a relative term. By looking at several companies in Beijing, mainly in entertainment, TV drama and animation, the thesis shows how the sector is injecting fresh ideas into the marketplace and how it plays an important role in improving innovation in many aspects of the television industry. The thesis shows how independent television companies in China are looking to protect their property rights. It demonstrates that far from being at the cutting edge, independents are reliant on a system that has many inbuilt structural problems. The thesis outlines many of the challenges facing 'independents'.

Evaluating the learning outcomes of an international field trip in postgraduate lighting design courses

Lighting industry professionals work in an international marketplace and encounter a range of social, geographical and cultural challenges associated with this. Education in lighting should introduce students to aspects of these challenges. To achieve this, an international field trip was recently undertaken that sought to provide an authentic learning experience for students. Twelve Masters of Lighting students from two Australian universities took part in a field trip to Shanghai, China and surrounding areas. The goal was to offer students insight into practical issues in the lighting industry at an international level and to do so in a unique and authentic context. To evaluate the outcomes of the trip, each participant was surveyed afterwards. Benefits were identified in terms of: increased knowledge and insight into manufacturing issues in lighting, experiential learning in lighting design practice not available locally (e.g, master planning), increased understanding of cultural influences in design and enhancing professional contacts within the lighting industry. Field trips may also act as an inverted curriculum experience for new students to engage them and promote learning within a professional context.

Service delivery in one-stop government portals : observations based on a market research study in Queensland

New government service delivery models based on a “franchise” metaphor are being proposed recently to allow more citizen-centric service delivery by decoupling the government’s internal departmental structure from the way services are presented and delivered to citizens. In order to evaluate the approach from an online channel perspective, the Queensland Government commissioned a market research study to compare their websites with the online presences of the UK Government and the South Australian Government, who both have adopted the “franchise” approach. The study aimed to inform an understanding of citizens’ preferred model for interacting in the online channel and to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the existing websites. In this paper, we will a) report on the findings of this third party usability study and b) position the study, in the form of a critical reflection, against the background of a more comprehensive “Transformational Government” approach using a “franchise marketplace”. The critical reflection points towards limitations of the study with regard to this bigger picture and discusses the potential benefits of service bundling that remained unconsidered in the study.

The knock-on from the knock-off : recent shifts within Australian mass market fashion design practice

Australia’s mass market fashion labels have traditionally benefitted from their peripheral location to the world’s fashion centres. Operating a season behind, Australian mass market designers and buyers were well-placed to watch trends play out overseas before testing them in the Australian marketplace. For this reason, often a designer’s role was to source and oversee the manufacture of ‘knock-offs’, or close copies of Northern hemisphere mass market garments. Both Weller (2007) and Walsh (2009) have commented on this practice. The knock-on effect from this continues to be a cautious, derivative fashion sensibility within Australian mass market fashion design, where any new trend or product is first tested and proved overseas months earlier. However, there is evidence that this is changing. The rapid online dissemination of global fashion trends, coupled with the Australian consumer’s willingness to shop online, has meant that the ‘knock-off’ is less viable. For this reason, a number of mass market companies are moving away from the practice of direct sourcing and are developing product in-house under a Northern hemisphere model. This shift is also witnessed in the trend for mass market companies to develop collections in partnership with independent Australian designers. This paper explores the current and potential effects of these shifts within Australian mass market design practice, and discusses how they may impact on designers, consumers and on the wider culture of Australian fashion.

How can design methodologies build strategic renewal in SMEs?

Many firms develop successful businesses around competencies and over time these competencies can become core rigidities and barriers to new ways of working. This paper investigates how firms respond to a design innovation program apply design methodologies to their business. Early findings from a study of companies engaged in a design innovation program indicate that applying design principles to multiple aspects of their business provides a new strategic focus, tools for a better understanding of their business and the marketplace, new economic activity, awareness of the need for an innovative culture and strategic renewal.

Turning histories into futures : assessment for learning as a field of exchange

Standardised testing does not recognise the creativity and skills of marginalised youth. Young people who come to the Edmund Rice Education Australia Flexible Learning Centre Network (EREAFLCN) in Australia arrive with forms of cultural capital that are not valued in the field of education and employment. This is not to say that young people‟s different modes of cultural capital have no value, but rather that such funds of knowledge, repertoires and cultural capital are not valued by the powerful agents in educational and employment fields. The forms of cultural capital which are valued by these institutions are measurable in certain structured formats which are largely inaccessible for what is seen in Australia to be a growing segment of the community. How then can the inherent value of traditionally unorthodox - yet often intricate, adroit, ingenious, and astute - versions of cultural capital evident in the habitus of many young people be made to count, be recognised, be valuated? Can a process of educational assessment be used as a marketplace, a field of capital exchange? This paper reports on the development of an innovative approach to assessment in an alternative education institution designed for the re-engagement of „at risk‟ youth who have left formal schooling. In order to capture the broad range of students‟ cultural and social capital, an electronic portfolio system (EPS) is under trial. The model draws on categories from sociological models of capital and reconceptualises the eportfolio as a sociocultural zone of learning and development. Initial results from the trial show a general tendency towards engagement with the EPS and potential for the attainment of socially valued cultural capital in the form of school credentials.

Composing services for third-party service delivery

This paper proposes a model-based technique for lowering the entrance barrier for service providers to register services with a marketplace broker, such that the service is rapidly configured to utilize the brokerpsilas local service delivery management components. Specifically, it uses process modeling for supporting the execution steps of a service and shows how service delivery functions (e.g. payment points) ldquolocalrdquo to a service broker can be correctly configured into the process model. By formalizing the different operations in a service delivery function (like payment or settlement) and their allowable execution sequences (full payments must follow partial payments), including cross-function dependencies, it shows how through tool support, the non-technical user can quickly configure service delivery functions in a consistent and complete way.

The rise of web service ecosystems

The convergence of Internet marketplaces and service-oriented architectures has spurred the growth of Web service ecosystems. This paper articulates a vision for Web service ecosystems, discusses early manifestations of this vision, and presents a unifying architecture to support the emergence of larger and more sophisticated ecosystems

Organizational rhetoric in the prospectuses of elite private schools: unpacking strategies of persuasion

The way in which private schools use rhetoric in their communications offers important insights into how these organizational sites persuade audiences and leverage marketplace advantage in the context of contemporary educational platforms. Through systemic analysis of rhetorical strategies employed in 65 ‘elite’ school prospectuses in Australia, this paper contributes to understandings of the ways schools’ communications draw on broader cultural politics in order to shape meanings and interactions among organizational actors. We identify six strategies consistently used by schools to this end: identification, juxtapositioning, bolstering or self-promotion, partial reporting, self-expansion, and reframing or reversal. We argue that, in the context of marketization and privatization discourses in twenty-first-century western education, these strategies attempt to subvert potentially threatening discourses, in the process actively reproducing broader economic and social privilege and inequalities.

SOA for business networks - service delivery framework

The next generation of SOA needs to scale for flexible service consumption, beyond organizational boundaries and current B2B applications, into communities, eco-systems, and business networks. In the wider and, ultimately, global settings, new capabilities are needed so that business partners can efficiently and reliably enable, adapt, and expose services where they can be discovered, ordered, consumed, metered, and paid for, through new applications and opportunities, driven by third parties in the global "village". This trend is already underway, in different ways, through various early adopter market segments. For the small medium enterprises segment, Google, Intuit-Microsoft, and others have launched appstores, through which an open-ended array of hosted applications are sourced from the development community and procured as maketplace commondities. In the corporate sector, the marketplace model and business network hubs are being put in place on top of connectivity and network orchestration investments for capitalizing services as tradable assets, seen in banking/finance (e.g. American Express Intelligent Marketplace), logistics (e.g., the E2open hub), and the public sector (e.g., UK DirectGov whole-of-government citizen services delivery).

Competing through service innovation : the role of bricolage and entrepreneurship in project-oriented firms

The criticality of service innovation in building and sustaining competitive advantage is gaining increasing recognition in the marketplace. Using empirical data from US and Australian project-oriented firms, the study uses a multi-staged multi-method research program to demonstrate how entrepreneurial service firms strategically combine resources at hand (bricolage) to innovate and stay ahead of rivals. The research shows that service entrepreneurship (SE) and bricolage influence two forms of service innovation (interactive and supportive), which in turn is associated with sustained competitive advantage (SCA). The results suggest that SE and bricolage indirectly relate to SCA through service innovation. The findings offer novel insights into how project-oriented service firms engage in innovation. In short, the findings encourage the “making do by combining resources at hand” as higher levels of entrepreneurial bricolage are associated with higher levels of interactive and supportive innovation enabling SCA, suggesting a new model.

The Moral Economy of Everyday Crime: Markets, Consumers and Citizens

Between the crimes in the suites and the crimes in the streets lies the mostly unexplored terrain within which we find crimes of ‘everyday life’. Not all of these are formally illegal, but all are generally seen as morally dubious. Most of the crimes of everyday life are committed in the contemporary marketplace, and by those who think of themselves (and are mostly considered by others) as respectable citizens. We contextualize normative orientations that are conducive to such types of behaviour using a framework that links E. P. Thompson’s (1963) concept of the ‘moral economy’ with Institutional Anomie Theory (Messner and Rosenfeld 1994, 2007). Findings from a comparative survey study in three economic change regions (England and Wales, Western and Eastern Germany) show that a syndrome of market anomie comprising distrust, fear and cynical attitudes toward law increases the willingness of respectable citizens to engage in illegal and unfair practices in the marketplace.