دانلود مقاله ISI انگلیسی شماره 4839
ترجمه فارسی عنوان مقاله

عملکرد و انگیزش تیم تدارکات

عنوان انگلیسی
Commodity team motivation and performance
کد مقاله سال انتشار تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی
4839 2008 13 صفحه PDF
منبع

Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)

Journal : Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, Volume 14, Issue 1, March 2008, Pages 15–27

ترجمه کلمات کلیدی
- تیم های تدارکات - سازمان خریدگروهی - منابع یابی جهانی
کلمات کلیدی انگلیسی
پیش نمایش مقاله
پیش نمایش مقاله  عملکرد و انگیزش تیم تدارکات

چکیده انگلیسی

In this article, an in-depth single case study is presented in order to explore and discuss the functioning of commodity teams in a global sourcing context. Specifically, the study aimed at identifying factors that may influence team members’ motivation to participate in activities that create opportunities for synergy and coordination of purchasing. In the teams studied, motivation appeared to be influenced to some degree by a number of factors, including rewards, leadership behaviours, goal setting, and the career goals of the commodity team members. In some cases, inconsistencies between these factors and the objectives of the commodity teams were associated with lower performance. The paper contributes theoretically by providing a rich description of how commodity teams function, and to practice by bringing attention to a number of managerial issues that should be considered when implementing commodity teams.

مقدمه انگلیسی

As competition becomes more intense, and companies are specialising in their supply chain, companies seek synergies especially in their overall global purchasing effort across business units (Rozemeijer et al., 2003). For any large multinational organisation, purchasing creates a central and continuing concern, as the organisation has to ensure that its various business units act so as to achieve corporate-wide synergies. The specialisation of worldwide strategic business units requires an advanced purchasing system to bind them together into an operational whole (Cray, 1984). The organisation needs to maintain an integrated purchasing system that emphasises the value of shared interest and helps leverage synergies, while granting each business unit the necessary flexibility to adapt to their particular environments. The potential for sourcing globally, reducing the supplier base, consolidating purchasing volume, and bundling negotiation power are some of the benefits that are clearly prioritised in companies today. However, leveraging synergies in global purchasing is not a straightforward task and encompasses far more than just centralising the purchasing function. One needs a balanced approach which takes into consideration the need for having problem-solving capabilities close to where problems occur, cost containment in each profit centre, and close relationships with suppliers (Gadde and Håkansson, 1994). In a small or single-site firm, purchasing power and knowledge is concentrated in proximity to production, sales, and product development activities. In a larger or more diversified company, obtaining advantages of a concentrated and cross-functional effort simultaneously is not physically possible. Trade-offs may be necessary regarding whether to have centralised purchasing activities for purposes of synergy within purchasing, or to decentralise activities for purposes of cross-functional synergies. A decentralised structure is generally attractive to conglomerates that have a business unit structure where each unit produces products that are unique or markedly different from those of other units. On the other hand, a centralised structure is preferable where several business units buy the same or similar goods, which are of strategic importance to them (Van Weele, 2005). In other words, organisational design is largely dependent on the potential product-related synergies. Most companies organise purchasing and sourcing activities in some centralisation/decentralisation hybrid. Furthermore, to increase opportunities for creating synergy within purchasing and sourcing, and to aid in coordination of the variety of activities involved, companies may choose to adopt what are referred to as commodity teams (e.g. Trent, 2004). Essentially, a commodity team is a centrally coordinated team that develops and implements company-wide strategies for a given commodity. The term commodity is used not to focus on low-value or low-risk items, but to indicate that there is some level of basic standard, market or material homogeneity to enable pooling and negotiation across business units. While Monczka and Trent (1998) concluded that the number of purchasing groups organised by commodity would continue to decrease gradually, Trent (2004) found that it was still amongst the most common ways of organising in medium–large firms. Thus, the concept of commodity teams encompasses the same opportunities and challenges inherent to teams used in other contexts (e.g. new product development teams). However to date, there are no in-depth empirical studies found in the literature that describe the functioning of such commodity teams, the opportunities they provide nor the challenges they face. The overall objective of this paper is to begin to explore the concept and practice of commodity teams, with particular interest on identifying factors that may encourage or restrict opportunities for creating the synergy for which the commodity teams are designed. In the following sections of the paper, a brief introduction to the concept of commodity teams is presented. Thereafter, the paper provides a review of the work team literature considered relevant to understanding the functioning of commodity teams.

نتیجه گیری انگلیسی

At the outset of this research, we assumed a link between team motivation and team performance. This simple relationship has been challenged in the above analysis and discussion, as it seems quite possible that a team can perform well in terms of, for example savings, without being motivated to function as a team. Team members expressed the view that the time and money spent to participate actively in the team outweigh the benefit, partly because of the administrative burden associated with the teamwork, and because of geographical distance. The motivation to achieve corporate synergies appeared to be more meaningful than the motivation to work as a team; thus, it is not certain that teams are the most appropriate organisational form for achieving corporate-wide purchasing synergies, especially when shared team goals are second to business unit goals. This research has identified several problems that are somehow a result of the matrix organisation composed of the business unit and commodity team structure. One such problem is concerned with monetary rewards. It is not uncommon that corporate purchasing structures are invisible in organisation charts, and have no or little operational budget. Therefore, and in order to enhance local attention to the corporate work, rewards are often paid by the local business units. It was however found that such a constellation may influence motivation and team effort negatively, especially where business units are only interdependent due to a sense of corporate linkage and responsibility. Another problem concerns the personal development and advancement opportunities in the matrix organisation. Personal pursuits of leadership responsibilities and global learning opportunities can be a potential lever of team motivation and effort; yet it has also been indicated that the devotion of time to commodity teamwork can negatively affect one's career. The case here clearly suggests the need to develop goals and rewards that are aligned with the individual team member's career objectives, for example, knowledge sharing and learning. The case company has been on a journey from centralisation to decentralisation, and then towards centralised coordination. This tendency, with the pendulum shifting from centralisation to business unit independence, and then back towards coordinated processes, is also observed in many other companies (Rozemeijer, 2000). In the case explored here, it seems that the next step is to centralise some commodity management further, while other commodities are managed locally, in a differentiated matrix structure. This indicates that the choice of organisational form is not just a matter of the pendulum swinging for the sake of change itself, nor is it a matter of organisational size and business diversity alone. Rather, there are commodity specific constraints to be considered. We have seen that for some requirements, the pursuit of synergies might not make sense as the technological complexity demands unreasonably high cross-functional involvement and local investments, or because the supply market situation does not make pooling possible. In those situations, it is questionable whether a team should still try to achieve synergies of scale, or rather focus on synergies related to knowledge and information sharing. The potential for knowledge sharing and learning that may only exist in a team structure should not be minimised. A number of authors have emphasised the importance of integration and distribution of knowledge throughout an organisation as being critical in terms of gaining competitive advantage (e.g. Alvesson, 2001; Purvis et al., 2001; Lei et al., 1999). The paper contributes to theory and practice by providing a unique in-depth description of some of the challenges that may be present when organisations attempt to implement a team structure in which there are continuous goals but only part-time membership. Specifically, the issue of motivation must be considered on both a theoretical and practical level: how can the goals for team members within the commodity team be aligned with other goals, including a team member's own career aspirations, so that they are motivated to participate in the purchasing and sourcing activities? Barker (1999) and Sewell (1998) both suggested that in some situations, due to peer pressure to perform, team members may seek ways in which to intensify their own behaviour without concern for the team as a whole. Further, the experiences reported here suggest that a company may need to weigh up whether teams are the most appropriate structure for creating purchasing and sourcing synergies when policies and practices in that area often rely more on one-on-one relationships between individuals within the company and their suppliers.