Resource Dependence View Research Articles

An e-government initiative to support supply chain integration for small to medium sized enterprises

The paper highlights the importance of the e-government initiative to support the supply chain integration among Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs). It has been reported that organisations need to integrate their Information Technology (IT) infrastructures to support the integration of their supply chains to increase their efficiency. However, the current research suggests that Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs), due to their lack of expertise and financial resources to invest in the necessary technologies, seem to need further support from the government in their efforts to adopt IT. Therefore, the role of the government is fundamental in supporting them to adopt supply chain management technologies, especially in geographical contexts such as this of Taiwan. A case study is therefore carried out in this paper to study an initiative taken in Taiwan by the government in order to help the supply chain integration of Taiwanese IT manufacturing companies. The findings suggest that the adoption of IT by SMEs (i.e. suppliers) is very much dependent on external forces (resource-dependency view), thus the government has a very important role to play when it comes to supporting SMEs to join supply chain networks. In doing so, this research provides a broader understanding of the phenomenon of e-government initiatives to support supply chain integration in practice.

Integrating Resource-based and Rational Contingency Views: Understanding the Design of Dynamic Capabilities of Organizations

Resource-based view of organisation emphasises that no organisation can be self sufficient and it will always be dependent on the environment for the fulfillment of resource needs. Further, this interaction with the environment can take various forms including manipulation, which is manifested through mergers, acquisitions and other interorganisational relationships. The rational contingency view of organisations emphasises the goals that an organisation has, which are not clearly brought out in the resource dependence view. It is attempted here to integrate perspectives from the resource-based and rational contingency views of organisations to assess how the dominant coalition would view its role in an organisation with respect to building dynamic capabilities after analysing an array of goal-resource linkage possibilities. _______________________________________________________ * FPM-II (Business Policy), Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Email: kaushik@iimahd.ernet.in ** Faculty, OB Area, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Email: khokle@iimahd.ernet.in The authors wish to acknowledge Prof. Abhishek Mishra for his comments on an earlier draft of the paper

An Integrated Agency–Resource Dependence View of the Influence of Directors' Human and Relational Capital on Firms' R&D Spending

abstractIn this paper, we contribute to the agency and corporate entrepreneurship literatures by focusing on board antecedents of research and development (R&D). Some researchers in this stream find outside directors negatively influence R&D spending, yet popular opinion suggests boards should be composed of outsiders, and at the same time, firms should be innovative and entrepreneurial. We begin to address this conflict by extending agency theory and incorporating resource dependence views in order to explore the influence of a wider range of director characteristics on R&D spending, a precursor of innovation and entrepreneurial activity. Our empirical results demonstrate that aspects of directors' human and relational capital (e.g. education, entrepreneurial finance experience, technical experience, and interlocks) significantly influence R&D spending. Our findings illustrate that boards can be configured to improve efficiencies, thereby reducing R&D spending, and/or to augment R&D spending. They reveal the merits of considering inside and outside directors separately and show how the independence (i.e. inside/outside status) of directors shapes the effect of their human and relational capital on R&D spending.

The symbiosis of entities in the social engagement network: The role of social ventures

Social entrepreneurship is increasingly recognized as a mechanism for creating social and economic value. By applying population ecology, resource dependency and resource-based view perspectives, this paper develops a conceptual model to provide greater insight into how social entrepreneurship ventures collaborate with other organizations in a network to fulfill resource requirements. Through this process social ventures address unmet social needs to create value which leads to the development and growth of individuals, communities, and regions. Using a large city's economic development actors involved in small business promotion as test cases, this exploratory study illustrates that social ventures effectively acquire resources from the primary social engagement network actors: corporations, governments, and other social ventures. The framework introduced in the paper provides a means by which to better understand the context in which relevant social engagement players in a network exist and the synergies that they can develop.

A Conjoint Approach to Understanding IT Application Services Outsourcing

The sourcing of application development is becoming increasingly complex. While much prior work has investigated sourcing in a homogeneous marketplace, sourcing choices have increased in complexity, with a myriad of choices ranging from insourcing to domestic outsourcing to engaging Application Service Providers (ASP) to offshoring . In this study, based upon four organizational theories (Transaction Cost, Resource-Based View, Resource-Dependence View, and the Knowledge-Based View of the Firm), we suggest 10 attributes that firms consider when deciding upon outsourcing of applications. We tested the attributes’ strength by performing conjoint analysis on data collected from 84 IS executives. We constructed profiles, which are combinations of attributes having different levels. Each executive responded to 18 such distinct profiles and selected corresponding outsourcing choices. Our results found that the three most significant drivers of an IT application service choice were cost, risk, and vendor capability. However, the importance of these drivers varied across the different sourcing options. Based upon this, we offer implications for decision-makers and researchers, along with directions for future research.

Funding source, board involvement techniques, and financial vulnerability in nonprofit organizations: A test of resource dependence

The study examined here tested a resource dependence view of the organization on a sample of nonprofit social service agencies. Results indicated that CEOs of privately funded nonprofit agencies were more likely to use board involvement techniques than CEOs of government-funded or commercially supported organizations. In addition, privately funded agencies were less vulnerable to economic shock than government or commercially funded agencies, and funding source explained incremental variance in board involvement and vulnerability beyond characteristics of the organization and board. These results provide support for assertions of resource dependence theory and suggest that a CEO's strategic engagement with an organization's board depends in part on the nature and concentration of the organization's resources.

Cooperative marketing associations: an investigation into the causes of effectiveness

Firms in many sectors of business cooperate in order to market generic features of their product. While much recent attention has been given to the management of strategic marketing alliances, less attention has been given to studying the management of relatively loose cooperative marketing associations where the existence of external benefits allows for the possibility of 'free-riders'. This paper reports on a study of the antecedents of effectiveness among a sample of UK cooperative tourism marketing associations. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods was used for testing a model of four antecedents of effectiveness: commitment, similarity, reciprocity and governance style. Using a LISREL model, the most significant influence on effectiveness was a formal governance style, followed by high levels of commitment from members and a diverse membership. The latter supported the resource dependency view that firms with differing strengths can achieve valuable symbiotic relationships.

Organizational decision making and error in a dynamic task environment*

Organizational theorists have attributed organizational performance to a variety of factors including time pressure, training, organizational complexity, environment complexity, and the match between the organization and its environment. Using a computational model of organizational performance based on an information processing and resource dependency view of organizations the effects of these factors are simultaneously compared and their potential relative impact deduced. Following such an analysis we find that time pressure, training, organizational complexity, and organizational environment are stronger determinants of organizational performance than the match between the organization and its environment.