Regine Slagmulder

Interorganizational cost management and relational context

Abstract Many firms today form alliances with their suppliers and customers that do not fit into the classical dichotomy of hierarchies and markets. The emergence of so-called hybrid relational forms makes the make-or-buy decision more complicated than the neo-classical economic perspective indicates. One outcome of these hybrid relational forms appears to be the development of cost management techniques that cross the organizational boundary between buyers and suppliers and whose objective is to reduce costs through collaborative efforts. This paper explores how firms enact interorganizational cost management during product design and the characteristics of the relational contexts associated with them. It also discusses the implications of such developments for the make-or-buy decision.

Investment Justification of Flexible Manufacturing Technologies: Inferences from Field Research

The literature offers a variety of different views on the investment decision process for flexible manufacturing technologies, but there seems to be no consensus about what are really the key characteristics of the decision‐making process which guarantee successful advanced manufacturing technology projects. Describes and analyses the investment decision process for a set of investment projects, based on field research conducted in six manufacturing companies, and reveals some of these critical determinants.

Justification of Strategic Investments in Flexible Manufacturing Technology

Over the last years traditional accounting methods of investment appraisal (such as pay‐back period and discounted cash‐flow analysis) have been abundantly criticized for not being appropriate to evaluate strategic investments, in advanced production technology. It has been argued that strategic arguments should be used as the only sound basis for investment justification. However, opinions continue to be divided about which evaluation criterion (strategic and/or financial) should prevail in the evaluation of flexible manufacturing technology (FMT) investments if the firm is to end up with a successful project. Studies the investment decision‐making process which precedes a major investment in FMT. It is hypothesized that different ways of investment justification can lead to high financial performance of investment projects in FMT, but each way may not be equally effective in every situation. Based on field research in six manufacturing companies, some of the key characteristics of the decision process o...

Management control in inter-organizational relationships:Lessons learnt from public-private partnerships

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become increasingly common. However, reported failure rates are high, underlining the challenge to effectively govern such relationships. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the management control structure for different types of PPPs by adopting a comparative case study approach. The two cases under study are partnerships between municipalities and their private partners: a long-term infrastructure project and an urban regeneration project. Given the different nature of the activities and the accompanying risks, the PPP literature suggests that the cooperation in these PPPs is organized in very different ways, namely loose versus tight. We propose (1) that outcome-based control mechanisms play an important role in managing loosely organized PPP projects and (2) that behaviour and social control mechanisms play an important role in managing tightly organized PPP projects. Although our results support these propositions, our analysis also suggests that existing frameworks for private inter-organizational relationships (IORs) are insufficient for explaining governance structures in PPPs. Given the specific nature of PPP arrangements, we identify a number of socio-political risks and related management control mechanisms not typically discussed in theories of private IORs. More specifically, we conclude that conveners and project champions play an important role as political controls in the success of PPPs.