Xerox Corporation Research Articles

A Short History of Xerox' Darwin Toolset for Programming Real-Time Machine Control Systems

In the 1970s, the Xerox Corporation located its development and manufacturing facilities in and around Rochester, New York [East Coast] and El Segundo, California [West Coast]. These had teams dedicated to providing programming tools for development engineers, who were located primarily on the East Coast, to use in creating control code for new products. This article delves into the history of those tools, primarily into the original, ground-breaking, high-level language called Shadow.

Obituary: Martin Kay

Obituary: Martin Kay

Strategic foresight of xerox servitization: look back and look forward

PurposeThis study aims to explore the strategies of Xerox Corporation (Xerox) in the copier industry, as its inception to date. In particular, it examines the process of Xerox’s creating platform advantage (the capability to engender an increasing future and continuing success of new innovations or businesses). The study provides insights on Xerox’s pursuit of specific strategies in managing technological innovations in the midst of fierce market competition.Design/methodology/approachThe research study uses a case study methodology to explore the strategic foresight of Xerox servitization. The study develops the new methodological tool to analyse the process of technology platform and business platform creation. The model can be applied to any industry to understand the pursuit of strategies in high-tech based market competition.FindingsThe analyses of Xerox’s strategies, as its inception to date, have revealed the process of platform creation (technology platform and business platform), which enabled Xerox to enjoy a continuing advantage. The results have shown that the pursuit of specific strategy is motivated by risk considerations as much as by a search for profit. Xerox has continually upgraded its platforms to get ready for the competition under the digital transformation of servitization.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this research study is the development of a new methodological framework, which can be used to analyse the process of platform creation in any industry. The new framework introduces a dynamic concept (rather than a static concept generally found in the previous literature) of technology and business platforms. This research study contributes to the body of knowledge in the areas of strategic management of innovation.

Managed Document Services at Xerox: Handle with Care

This public-sourced case offers the experiences of a storied American company to set the stage for an analysis of a company that missed some serious trends in the marketplace and a leader's change reputation within that context. The situation provides an opportunity to explore how to think about and approach a change that involved numerous complex issues such as new products, different competitors, cultural complacency, and people issues. In that regard, the case also provides an opportunity to examine two personnel change issues that every manager deals with—“fit” and “coach-ability.”The case opens with a newly appointed managing director, Tony Chen, chosen to lead Xerox's managed document services (MDS) division, reflecting on his confidence as already having turned around two other divisions at the company. There was a growing urgency within Xerox to implement change, and a new CEO was put in place to get it done. Chen knew that he faced an assignment that could make or break his career. He knew that change was needed, but what to change and how much to change seemed especially important in MDS. His mandate was both change but don't change at the same time. How to balance that tension is a major component in this case. Chen held concerns about one of his senior people to lead an initiative that seemed to be ignored, compensation issues, and whether he should rearrange or let some folks go. Making changes would include unpopular decisions and might just backfire this time. Excerpt UVA-OB-1321 Jul. 23, 2020 Managed Document Services at Xerox: Handle with Care It was February 1, 2019. Tony Chen pushed himself outside through the glass doors from the entrance lobby of Xerox Corporation's (Xerox's) headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut, and strode to the Uber that would ferry him to his daughter's piano recital. He checked his smartwatch: 6:05 p.m. Family first, he thought. But his work wasn't even close to being done for the night. He'd gotten used to working late ever since Xerox's Vice Chairman and CEO John Visentin had hired him three months earlier to lead Xerox's managed document services (MDS) division. It was a plum job. The biggest opportunity of Chen's career. But it was a delicate one too. As the group's new general manager, Chen was responsible for nearly $ 3.5billion in revenues (Exhibit 1). He'd risen through the Xerox ranks after getting his MBA by asking tough questions, being willing to cut costs, and “breaking some glass.” The approach hadn't always made Chen popular, but he mixed a lot of optimism, charisma, and enthusiasm into his management style. Most importantly, it seemed to work. Chen had turned around two divisions within Xerox, most recently stabilizing a subsidiary of the IT outsourcing business Xerox had just spun off into a public company named Conduent Inc. (NASDAQ: CNDT). The spin-off of Conduent had been an idea pushed by activist shareholder Carl Icahn, who was the largest single shareholder of Xerox at 10.6%. Following that move, Xerox was left with three divisions that sold both products and services: MDS, workplace solutions, and graphic communications. And now Chen would be leading the only division with increasing sales. . . .

Accounting Fraud at Xerox Corporation: Ethical Considerations

Accounting Fraud at Xerox Corporation: Ethical Considerations

Sustainable Additive Manufacturing of Printed Circuit Boards

Woo Soo Kim received his B.Sc. degree from Yonsei University and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from KAIST. He was a Post-Doctoral Associate with MIT. He was also a Senior Research Scientist with Xerox Corporation. He joined Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada, as Assistant Professor in 2010 and was promoted to an Associate Professor in 2016. From 2017 to 2018 he was a Visiting Professor with Seoul National University, Korea and with Empa, Switzerland. His research interest is broad in the field of additive manufacturing. He is a recipient of the Quadrant Award 2007 and the Hanwha New Faculty Award 2016.

Risk-Aversion and Service Usage Elasticity: An Empirical and Theoretical Study of Contracting in Managed Print Service

Managed print service (MPS) is a type of IT infrastructure service that provides centralized management of companies' printing device fleets. In this paper, we estimate the provider's risk preference in MPS using a proprietary data set from Xerox Corporation. We also examine consequences of risk-aversion on the design of contracts under asymmetric information for multi-dimensional B2B services. In our theoretical model, we model the contracting and usage processes of MPS as a two-stage game. In the first stage, the provider designs multi-term contracts to screen the companies' private information about their willingness-to-pay. In the second stage, the employees of the companies choose print quantities. Then we build several econometric models based on the equilibrium contracts and print volumes from the theoretical model. Our econometric models have a unique hierarchical structure that allows clustering of printers with the same contracts in the same company, thereby capturing the B2B nature of MPS.

Risk-Aversion and B2B Contracting Under Asymmetric Information: Evidence from Managed Print Services

Managed print service (MPS) is a type of information technology infrastructure service that provides centralized management of companies’ printing device fleets. In this paper, we estimate the provider’s risk preference in MPS using a proprietary data set from Xerox Corporation. We adopt a structural approach in our empirical analysis by modeling the contracting and usage processes of MPS as a two-stage screening game and building econometric models based on the equilibrium contracts and print volumes. Our econometric models have a unique hierarchical structure that allows clustering of printers with the same contracts in the same company, thereby capturing the B2B nature of MPS. We find that Xerox exhibits risk aversion in MPS contracting and provide institutional details of Xerox’s commission holdback policy that may cause the observed risk aversion. In the counterfactual analysis, we demonstrate the significance of the provider’s risk aversion and the implications of the commission holdback policy on equilibrium contracts, the expected earnings of Xerox and customer companies, and their preferences for printer models. The E-companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2017.1673 .

Linguistics: The Garden and the Bush

Linguistics: The Garden and the Bush

Dysfunctional behavior of external auditors the collision of time budget and time deadline evidence from a developing country

The general goal behind this research is to gain a better understanding of factors leading to dysfunctional behavior of auditors. The role of auditors has been a controversial issue especially after the recent accounting scandals (WorldCom, Enron, Paramalat SpA, Waste Management Inc., Xerox Corporation, and Société Générale). In relation to these scandals and lawsuits, a question is frequently asked “where were the auditors?” The survey we offer up for research is made up of 34 questions that are designed to analyse the perception of auditors and the cause of dysfunctional behavior. The object of this research is comprised of auditors positioned and employed at the Big Four audit firms in Kuwait. The selected sample is comprised from auditors at different levels ranging from audit trainees to audit partners. The so-called stakeholder theory talks about the relationship between audit behavior and audit firm practices with time deadlines and time budgets involved. It is generally accepted that the more auditors align their interests with firms’ measures and practices, the more a firm is capable of meeting general goals and objectives. Consequently, this may result in a less dysfunctional workplace conduct. Dysfunctional behavior (DB) is analysed against two signalling proxies of dysfunctional behavior; premature sign-off and under reporting of chargeable time. DB is analysed against time budget and time deadline pressures. The results suggest that the general belief among auditors is that the profession of accountancy predetermines their tendency to commit certain patterns of dysfunctional behavior. The results indicate that auditors understand that dysfunctional behavior is exercised by the majority of auditors. Dysfunctional behaviour is exercised with intention and it is not committed out of ignorance. One of the interesting findings is that auditors, at all levels, are concerned about their reputation. Thus, dysfunctional behavior is exercised, to a certain extent, without harming the quality of the audit work. Having our investigation conducted at the Big Four audit firms, we have come to the conclusion that there is a general difference in behavior patterns among perceptions of dysfunctional behavior and normal skeptic professional behavior. Audit firms should continuously conduct workshop and training events related to dysfunctional behavior. It is revealed that some auditors are not aware that certain practices are considered dysfunctional behavior or not. This research work can be used to aid audit practitioners to mitigate audit dysfunctional behavior. It highlights certain type of practices that is exercised in an improper way.

Learning from the CEO of Electro Imaging Systems, Inc.: A Conversation with Qasim Tarin

Belal A. Kaifi, Trident University InternationalYalda Tarin, University of California, DavisAs an entrepreneur, Qasim has built his own successful organizations and has a consulting business helping other entrepreneurs develop their businesses worldwide. He is both a business owner and business developer, helping to rebuild Afghanistan's economy as well as restoring business. As an Afghan American, Qasim Tarin understands the culture along with the desires of the Afghans and can reach out and relate to them.In 1979, Qasim earned a degree in electrical engineering from International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Kabul, Afghanistan. Through his education, Qasim was involved in connecting channels of telex and telegraph between Moscow and Kabul. He was also involved in the design of a typewriter to be connected to a PC through Teal Industry. Unfortunately, in the same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and war broke out. Qasim left Afghanistan for the United States so that he could start a new life away from war and turmoil. He landed in the U.S. with only 50 dollars in his pocket. He slowly worked his way up, determined to be successful for the sake of his family.Qasim has been trained and has worked with large corporations such as Toshiba America, IBM, Cannon USA, Xerox Corporation, Hewlett Packard, Ricoh Corporation USA and Sharp Electronics. Through his leadership training for management and education from IBM, HP, Xerox universities and experience, Qasim Tarin began developing his own dotcom and technology business in 1994 in Pleasanton, California. Electro Imaging Systems, Inc. (EIS) is a document solutions business that provides top of the line copiers, facsimiles, printers, scanners, software, Multi-Functioning Printers (MFP), Managed IT Services, and Managed Print Systems (MPS). He started his business from zero and built the company to a multi-million dollar corporation in Northern California. In 1988, he married Salma Tarin, an Afghan American who also left Afghanistan due to the Soviet invasion. They now have three beautiful daughters.With his wife, Salma, Qasim developed the idea of the Afghan Business Network to give his knowledge and expertise of business development to all entrepreneurs around the world.Authors: Why do you think it is important for leaders to be both task and relationship oriented?Tarin: I agree that both are important. Relationship creates a moral support process and task is when specific duties need to be fulfilled based on the structure of an organization. Leadership comes in both ways. It's a combination of both because as a leader you need to motivate by creating a relationship-oriented environment and thus create a task-oriented environment. For example, leaders may use positive relationships with their employees in a way to create motivation for them to complete tasks. Employees will take their tasks more seriously because leaders will create a more motivational and positive environment for their employees.Authors: How can a multi-generational workforce learn from one another?Tarin: A leader must understand diversity in a workforce with different generations working in a business. I see the differences in mentalities and personalities of the different generations and it sometimes causes discrepancies in a business. However, everyone is unique . Just like each finger print is unique, so are people. In order to manage different generations, have them work together efficiently and productively, a structured system needs to be created. You can't create a job for the person. You need to create a system and bring the right person for that job.I firmly believe that the younger generations need to become the leaders and the older generations need to guide them and contribute their experience to those leaders. If we put an environment in that direction, all will work together efficiently. They will get along very well because they will understand the boundaries around them. …

“Going Paperless”: The Case for Electronic Submission of Student Work

In 1975, Business Week published an article on “The Office of the Future.” In twenty years, predicted the head of the Xerox Corporation's Research Center, everyone would have a keyboard and monitor...

The Rejuvenation of Inventors Through Corporate Spinouts

This article focuses on corporate spinouts as a strategy that can rejuvenate the inventive efforts of inventors with a long tenure in the same company. We rely on an unbalanced panel of 5,604 inventor-year observations to study a matched sample of 431 inventors employed by the Xerox Corporation and find evidence in support of three predictions. First, inventors who join a spinout increase the extent of exploration in their inventive activities. Second, they decrease the extent to which they rely on the parent organization’s knowledge. Third, because long-tenured employees, through socialization, tend to progressively adopt more exploitative behavior than short-tenured members, they benefit relatively more from the spinout experience. These results are robust to several econometric specifications that try to account for the endogeneity of the inventors’ decision to join the spinout, for the fact that spinouts’ inventive activity may be intrinsically different from that of the parent company, and for the possible presence of novel external stimuli for those who join spinouts. The data provide large-sample evidence consistent with the idea that socialization reduces opportunities for organizational learning; we discuss the implications for theory and practice.

TEACHING AUTHENTIC ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES USING A CASE STUDY

ABSTRACT Teaching authentic adaptive leadership strategies can be made real and reinforced through using a case study approach. This paper illustrates how leadership praxis can be taught using a case study. The challenges Xerox Corporation faced in their efforts to repurpose the organization, regain customer loyalty, and increase employee morale represent the challenges applicable to complex, global organizations. The leadership skills required to forecast changes and opportunities in the global business economy and the strategies necessary to lead a complex organization through reinvention, innovation, and repurposing, are the practices of leaders who are authentic and adaptive. Following a series of adversities in the organization, Xerox returned to basic management principles by reinventing itself as a global leader. The Xerox process of reinvention was purposeful, strategic, and focused on the adaptive and authentic leadership models of its senior leaders, Anne Mulcahy and Ursula Burns. Keywords Strategy, authentic leadership, adaptive leadership, change management, global leadership.

Embedding Lean Six Sigma into everyday use ensures sustainable culture change at Xerox

AbstractAlthough the Xerox Corporation had a venerable and successful Lean Six Sigma program emulated by other companies around the world, there were subtle signs that it had not been fully absorbed into the corporation's culture. Blending a traditional project approach with creative developments from the behavioral sciences, Xerox used Lean Six Sigma principles to develop QwikSolverTM, a personally relevant and straightforward method for applying Lean Six Sigma every day. This case study follows the evolution and design of the cultural change program and the platform from which it was launched. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Is Canadian intellectual property leaving Canada? A study of nanotechnology patenting

In this study we explore the patent ownership for the innovations created by Canadian nanotechnology inventors. We find that although there is a great innovative potential and inventive productivity among Canadian researchers, a lot of the intellectual property actually leaves the country: Around 50% of the nanotechnology patents invented by Canadian inventors are owned by foreign assignees. We also note the predominance of private companies among the patent owners. Almost one-third of all the Canadian-invented nanotechnology patents is assigned to a single American firm, Xerox Corporation. Furthermore, we explore the role of Canadian nanotechnology star inventors. The results show that the fruits of their great inventive productivity are collected outside Canada.

Benchmarking Revisited: The Global Search for Performance Improvement

This article provides a brief overview of the development of benchmarking in the water industry, from early efforts published by Harvard University, to Xerox Corporation's input on benchmarking practices along with that of the Office of Water Services (OFWAT) in the United Kingdom. Confusion in the industry over terminology and inconsistencies in benchmarking concepts was heightened by a 1996 report on benchmarking by the Awwa Research Foundation (now known as the Water Research Foundation). The article stresses the need for clear terms and a common language and understanding of benchmarking in the water industry as the importance of benchmarking grows, and discusses the confusion over the terms “metric benchmarking” and “process benchmarking”. A new manual on best practices of benchmarking will be jointly published by the IWA and AWWA, with the objective of defining a new framework in which the traditional benchmarking concepts can be clearly distinguished, thus guaranteeing more fluent and efficient communication.

From the Sacred to the Profane: A Critical Analysis of the Changing Nature of Religious Imagery in Advertising

Advertisers frequently mine popular culture for creative inspiration, finding themes, characters, and visual references in movies, books, sports, fashion, and fads. This study explores the depiction of religion in secular advertising. The beguiling innocence of Xerox Corporation's 1976 Brother Dominic (“It's a miracle …”) appears to have given way to more daring approaches employing God, the devil, angels, exorcism, live births in nativity plays, and darker overtones hinting at violence and pedophilia. Both media and cultural trends appear to underlie this shift in tone. Some advertising pundits and researchers indicate that as the power of traditional advertising is waning, advertisers must increase the “volume” in order to break through and command attention. Secularization of religion might also be a factor in broader appropriation of religious symbolism. This study suggests that religion can sometimes provide advertisers with the fuel for shocking audiences, and its content analysis explores what separates the uncontroversial from the offensive with examples from print, television, and Internet advertising.

Accounting Fraud at Xerox Corporation

The accounting and ethical issues at Xerox in the late 1990s were many and highly interesting. It appears that Management at Xerox Corporation faced with strategic mistakes and a tough economic environment including Japanese competition resorted to creative accounting practices to meet financial targets and Wall Street expectations. This case presents a brief history of Xerox Corporation going back to 1906 when Xerox was founded in New York. This is followed by a discussion of Xerox's corporate culture in the 1980s and 90s and the SEC investigation of its accounting practices in the 1990s. The focus of the case is the actions of an assistant treasurer, James Bingham, one of several finance managers that top management used to guide Xerox through tough economic times and help make financial results go their way. Mr. Bingham, at least initially, viewed helping management meet financial targets as a challenge. However, in due course he realized that all he is doing is help mask bigger and bigger problems that would lead Xerox in only one direction-bankruptcy. A short teaching note is also included. The teaching note includes several suggested questions along with a brief discussion. The focus in the teaching note is on the actions of James Bingham and ethical issues. The case also presents an opportunity to present or reintroduce the Institute of Management Accountant's Statement of Ethical Professional Practice to students. The IMA's Statement of Ethical Professional Practice provides guidance for accountants to act in a responsible and ethical manner in conducting their day to day activities. The case requires the students to apply the IMA's Statement of Ethical Professional Practice to the actions of James Bingham and other accounting personnel at Xerox Corporation.

A case study of a centrally managed ERP implementation for manufacturing plants of a global corporation

Xerox Corporation implemented a global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to effectively manage its 52 worldwide manufacturing plants and lay the foundations of future e-commerce solutions. The strategic objective for implementing a global manufacturing ERP system at Xerox is for management to gain insights into real-time financial visibility and total material requirement consolidation. This paper gives an insight into the planning and implementation process of this Oracle Manufacturing and Financial System (OMAF) from the perspective of Xerox's leading electronics manufacturing plant, Southern California Manufacturing Operations, (SCMO) located in El Segundo, California. An efficient implementation model and associated metrics, based on gap analysis, were developed to manage the activities. Gap analysis also proved to be an effective method for balancing the interests of the process owners, end-users, implementers and all other stakeholders of the project.