بازاریابی جهانی و تامین تجهیزات محصولات صنعتی: طراحی رسمی و سازمانی وظایف عملکردی بین شرکتی

Marketing and procuring component parts in the global marketplace can pose such significant trading hazards that industrial transactions often must be embedded in protective governance. This article identifies key forces influencing the institutional designs that best safeguard exchanges between international trading partners for such industrial tasks as the design, fabrication and delivery of component parts. The effectiveness of designs such as market contracting, alliances, and international joint ventures are shown to be a consequence of the transactional characteristics of a given task, the governance risks experienced by both buyer and supplier, and the differences between the institutional environments of the partners' countries. In addition to a comprehensive institutional design model, several propositions are developed to serve as a guide to future empirical research in the areas of global industrial marketing and procurement.

In a global business-to-business setting, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) rely on international networks of suppliers to furnish key component parts (Bello & Zhu, 2006). For each of these components, crucial functional tasks such as design, fabrication, and delivery are required prior to assembly of the finished product at an OEM's factory (see Fig. 1). OEM's face the classic “make or buy” decision regarding each task since designing, fabricating, and delivering components can be performed in-house or outsourced to upstream suppliers. For any given component part, an OEM may arrive at a unique institutional arrangement for each task: design may be outsourced, fabrication performed in-house, and JIT delivery to final assembly performed by a trusted third-party logistics provider (3PL). Hence, tasks such as designing and fabricating parts can be managed using alternative institutional designs or governance mechanisms ranging from simple market contracting to vertically integrated ownership (Carson, Devinney, Dowling, & John, 1999). Between market contracting and ownership are a variety of intermediate (i.e., hybrid) governance institutions employing social–relational elements such as partnerships, alliances, and joint ventures that can be used to organize the conduct of interfirm tasks. Full-size image (20 K) Fig. 1. Interfirm functional tasks: Global marketing and procurement of industrial products. Figure options Analysts (Bello, Lohtia, & Dant, 1999) recognize that several strategic, production and transaction cost factors affect institutional designs, and Williamson (1985) in particular details the dominant role played by important exchange attributes in determining organizational form. In spite of this rich literature, several gaps remain. First, researchers tend to examine governance issues from either the industrial supplier or buyer's perspective. Scant studies have employed a comprehensive approach to the transacting hazards and governance risks experienced by both industrial buyers and suppliers. Second, the level of aggregation for studies of organizational form often occurs at the firm-level rather than at the task-level. A focus on tasks permits a more fine-grained analysis of institutional design at a fundamental level of organizational structure. Third, the range of design options considered in many studies is limited to a simple choice between outsourcing or in-house production. Often ignored is the rich set of intermediate design options that reflect unique hybrid combinations of markets and hierarchies. Finally, an overwhelming majority of studies are conducted in domestic settings. Cross-border, macro-environmental forces that may weaken and otherwise interfere with industrial governance arrangements between global trading partners have been given little attention. The purpose of this article is to specify the design of institutional arrangements for interfirm functional tasks associated with marketing and procurement of industrial products in a global business-to-business context. Fig. 2 introduces a model detailing the connections between transactional characteristics of a functional task, governance risks for both the buyer and supplier, and the impact of institutional environmental differences between international markets. The article makes three contributions to our understanding of global industrial buyer–seller relationships. First, the source of governance risks involved in industrial component transactions is identified as flowing from key characteristics of the interfirm functional task. Based on transaction cost theory, three exchange attributes (i.e., asset specificity, uncertainty, and performance ambiguity) of a given component-related task are demonstrated to be the foundation of governance difficulties. Second, industrial buyer's and supplier's negotiation preferences for a particular governance arrangement are shown to be driven by the governance risks experienced by each party. Different combinations of risk allocation drive the particular governance preferences for a given task. Third, environmental differences between the partners' home countries are shown to condition the preferences of the trading partners for institutional arrangements. Regulatory, normative, and cultural differences are identified as strengthening or weakening the preferences of partners for particular institutional solutions to governance problems. Full-size image (40 K) Fig. 2. Institutional design for an interfirm functional task: Global marketing and procurement of industrial products. Figure options The article proceeds by analyzing various institutional arrangements for interfirm functional tasks involved in global industrial markets, exchange attributes in terms of governance risks, and implications for a task's institutional design across focal interdependent dyads as well as external operating environments. Three propositions are developed to summarize the theory presented and to serve as a guide to future empirical research in the area of global industrial marketing and procurement.

Global buyer–supplier relationships can be organized through various institutional designs, reflecting both the governance risks inherent in industrial transactions and the constraints of institutional environments. Because poor design choices inhibit efficient exchange, OEMs deploying component transactions across several countries may encounter severe governance problems and fail to procure crucial functional tasks such as the design, fabrication, and delivery of necessary parts. To ensure efficient exchange, a firm entering into international transactions must recognize and be prepared to accommodate a possible difference in trading hazards and governance risks between itself and foreign suppliers. Since trading parties may experience unique safeguarding, adaptation and measurement problems, their needs for a highly protective form of governance vary. Different combinations of risk allocation drive particular governance preferences, yet the ability of the principals to reconcile their inconsistent requirements depends on their regulatory, normative and cognitive–cultural environments. The interactions of governance and environmental forces imply that firms must understand and manage a portfolio of institutional designs that range from market contracting to equity joint ventures with their international trading partners. Clearly, the complex forces encountered in the global marketplace require an equally complex response in the way firms organize and manage the marketing and procurement of industrial products. For industrial managers, institutional design must be recognized as a key strategic decision area that can affect the success or failure of international exchanges for component parts and related services. An OEM procuring parts from global suppliers must actively manage the organizational form of its relationship with foreign vendors to ensure stable sources of high-quality components at competitive prices. International procurement can fail when foreign vendors withdraw from transactions due to a lack of protection from trading hazards as well as when OEM-buyers lack protection from potentially opportunistic foreign suppliers. For example, an OEM procuring fabrication service requiring specific asset investments creates a safeguarding problem since a foreign supplier would suffer a loss if exchange was terminated. To encourage supplier investments in unique tooling and equipment, the OEM could contractually agree to a “take or pay” volume purchase agreement for a multi-year period. Such a contractual guarantee to buy a minimum amount protects the supplier by ensuring the future volume needed to fully amortize specific investments. Likewise, an OEM seeking to contract for global logistic services must recognize and address potential trading hazards due to unanticipated contingencies in the costs of fuel, port fees, and other transportation-related expenses. A foreign logistics provider faces a serious cost-side adaptation problem which the OEM can address by entering into a “cost-plus” pricing contract. Of course, this creates a new vulnerability for the OEM in the sense that an opportunistically inclined logistics provider could falsely inflate charges and otherwise demand unfair cost-plus payments. One possible contractual solution would provide strict auditing privileges and full information access to the OEM prior to any pricing adjustment. Unfortunately, simple contractual solutions to complex trading risks seldom completely fix global marketing and procurement problems. As noted, a firm in a foreign country may lack the full contracting rights it might enjoy in its domestic market and/or it may find local partners simply uninterested in and distrustful of contracting. Given the tremendous diversity in regulatory, normative, and cognitive–cultural systems around the world, a firm must be prepared to customize institutional designs to local market conditions. Often, customization yields intermediate or hybrid organizational forms that are capable of satisfying the inconsistent governance risks and preferences of trading partners. Clan-assisted markets can cope with situations where the inadequate safeguards of simple market contracting are offset by strong relational norms of information sharing, flexibility, and solidarity between the partners. In turn, clan-assisted bureaucracies can cope with situations where an ownership solution is simply unavailable in a foreign country to a firm facing sever safeguarding, adaptation, and measurement risks. Such a firm can secure the necessary protection if it can formulate a restrictive contract with a local partner providing it with auditing, inspection, and other surveillance privileges. Importantly, industrial managers responsible for global operations must realize that not all “deals can be done” meaning it is possible that the institutional environment of a given country may not support any hybrid solutions to trading risks. A foreign country's legal system and culture may be so fragile and unsupportive that they preclude any combination of social elements, contract, ownership that is able to address trading hazards satisfactorily. Hence, a firm may discover that the set of feasible institutional arrangements that can be crafted fail, in the end, to adequately protect it from risks associated with market entry. For researchers, opportunities exist to explain more fully “when and why” certain international exchanges are too hazardous to consummate. Much greater detail is needed in our understanding of the way institutional environments interfere with and otherwise interrupt trading arrangements between global partners. For example, what specific aspects of the normative and cognitive–cultural environments are most responsible for the failure of partners to establish the trust, commitment, and relational norms needed to supplement a weak contract? Or which of the governance risks – safeguarding, adaptation, or measurement – are most effectively addressed by clan-assisted mechanisms? Further, researchers can investigate the validity of the three propositions offered in this article. To illustrate, it is suggested that when cultures are severely misaligned, the effectiveness of ownership and social elements weaken implying that firms rely more on contracting. Whether a clash of cultures leads to a stronger reliance on contractual mechanisms such as open bidding or arm's-length sourcing is an empirical question that can enhance our understanding of cross-border exchange. More generally, since efforts to market and procure industrial products globally often fail because risk exposures are simply too high, researchers can make a substantive contribution by offering a fuller explanation of the governance and institutional complexities inherent in international trade.