Nishtha Langer

Assessing the Impact of RFID on Return Center Logistics

As many manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and logistics firms adopt RFID, the technology is becoming pervasive in the supply chain. Although its advocates include retail giants such as Wal-Mart, not all companies are enthusiastic about its benefits. It is not clear whether RFID is a boon or a curse to the supply chain---its market growth may just be an issue of compliance. To establish the real benefits of RFID, we conducted a field study with GENCO, a third-party logistics company that deployed RFID in the outbound logistics operations at one of its return centers. Our analysis found that the RFID implementation had a significant impact on the GENCO outbound process. The number of customer claims fell substantially following the RFID deployment. After controlling for other factors in our model, we confirmed that RFID was a key factor that contributed to the positive results at this return center. The current study underscores the potential of RFID for todays businesses.

Human Capital Investments and Employee Performance: An Analysis of IT Services Industry

The rapid pace of technological innovation necessitates that information technology IT services firms continually invest in replenishing the skills of their key asset base, the human capital. We examine whether human capital investments directed toward employee training are effective in improving employee performance. Our rich employee level panel data set affords us the opportunity to link formal training with performance at the individual employee level. Using a dynamic panel model, we identify a significant positive impact of training on employee performance. A unit increase in training is linked to a 2.14% increase in an employees performance. Interestingly, we find that in the IT sector, skills atrophy and consequently high-experience employees reap higher returns from training, which highlights the uniquely dynamic nature of IT knowledge and skills. We also find that general training that an employee can utilize outside the focal firm improves employee performance. However, specific training pertinent to the focal firm is not positively linked to performance. On the other hand, although domain and technical training both enhance employee performance individually, the interaction between the two suggests a substitutive relationship. Thus, our findings suggest that the value of training is conditional on a focused curricular approach that emphasizes a structured competency development program. Our findings have both theoretical and practical significance. Most important, they justify increased human capital investments to fuel future growth in this important component of the global economy. This paper was accepted by Lorin Hitt, information systems.

Estimating returns to training in the knowledge economy: a firm-level analysis of small and medium enterprises

The ongoing digitization of multiple industries has drastically reduced the half-life of skills and capabilities acquired by knowledge workers through formal education. Thus, firms are forced to make significant ongoing investments in training their employees to remain competitive. Existing research has not examined the role of training in improving firm-level productivity of knowledge firms. This paper provides an innovative econometric framework to estimate returns to such employee training investments made by firms. We use a panel dataset of small- to medium-sized Indian IT services firms and assess how training enhances human capital, a critical input for such firms, thereby improving firm revenues. We use econometric approaches based on optimization of the firms profit function to eliminate the endogenous choice of inputs common in production function estimations. We find that an increase in training investments is significantly linked to an increase in revenue per employee. Further, marginal returns to training are increasing firm size. Therefore, relatively speaking, large firms benefit more from training. For the median company in our data, we find that a dollar invested in training yields a return of

Client satisfaction versus profitability: An empirical analysis of the impact of formal controls in strategic outsourcing contracts

4.67, and this effect approximately grows 2.5 times for the 75th percentile-sized firm. A variety of robustness checks, including the use of data envelopment analysis, are used to establish the veracity of our results.

Ushering Buyers into Electronic Channels: An Empirical Analysis

The reach and impact of outsourcing is growing fast to include a variety of strategic objectives. Unlike in transactional outsourcing, where the vendor leverages scale economies to provide standardized services at reduced costs of ownership, client satisfaction in strategic outsourcing is contingent on the extent to which the vendor’s service offering is customized to meet heterogeneous, unique client needs. However, project management practices that lead to high levels of client satisfaction may be incompatible with the project’s financial performance. In this study, we investigate how managerial actions differentially impact project profitability and client satisfaction. Using rich field data on 390 strategic outsourcing contracts, we examine the differential impact of output controls, activity controls and capability controls on client satisfaction and contract profitability. We find that activity controls are positively associated with client satisfaction and profitability; in contrast, our results present mixed evidence for capability controls, and negative impact for output controls. In addition to contributing to research in control theory, our results provide actionable insights for vendors into appropriate strategies and tactics for competing efficiently and effectively in services markets.