Related Research Articles
Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more parties to resolve points of difference, gain an advantage for an individual or collective, or craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. The parties aspire to agree on matters of mutual interest. The agreement can be beneficial for all or some of the parties involved. The negotiators should establish their own needs and wants while also seeking to understand the wants and needs of others involved to increase their chances of closing deals, avoiding conflicts, forming relationships with other parties, or maximizing mutual gains. Distributive negotiations, or compromises, are conducted by putting forward a position and making concessions to achieve an agreement. The degree to which the negotiating parties trust each other to implement the negotiated solution is a major factor in determining the success of a negotiation.
A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value, in economic, social, cultural or other contexts. For a business, it describes the specific way in which it conducts itself, spends, and earns money in a way that generates profit. The process of business model construction and modification is also called business model innovation and forms a part of business strategy.
Outsourcing includes both foreign and domestic forms of outside contracting. It is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another. The term outsourcing, which came from the phrase outside resourcing, originated no later than 1981 at a time when industrial jobs in the United States were being moved overseas, contributing to the economic and cultural collapse of small, industrial towns.
Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of conflict and retribution. Committed group members attempt to resolve group conflicts by actively communicating information about their conflicting motives or ideologies to the rest of group and by engaging in collective negotiation. Dimensions of resolution typically parallel the dimensions of conflict in the way the conflict is processed. Cognitive resolution is the way disputants understand and view the conflict, with beliefs, perspectives, understandings and attitudes. Emotional resolution is in the way disputants feel about a conflict, the emotional energy. Behavioral resolution is reflective of how the disputants act, their behavior. Ultimately a wide range of methods and procedures for addressing conflict exist, including negotiation, mediation, mediation-arbitration, diplomacy, and creative peacebuilding.
Procurement is the process of locating and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. The term may also refer to a contractual obligation to "procure", i.e. to "ensure" that something is done. When a government agency buys goods or services through this practice, it is referred to as government procurement or public procurement.
Social exchange theory is a sociological and psychological theory that studies the social behavior in the interaction of two parties that implement a cost-benefit analysis to determine risks and benefits. The theory also involves economic relationships—the cost-benefit analysis occurs when each party has goods that the other parties value. Social exchange theory suggests that these calculations occur in romantic relationships, friendships, professional relationships, and ephemeral relationships as simple as exchanging words with a customer at the cash register. Social exchange theory says that if the costs of the relationship are higher than the rewards, such as if a lot of effort or money were put into a relationship and not reciprocated, then the relationship may be terminated or abandoned.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is a subset of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business process to a third-party service provider. Originally, this was associated with manufacturing firms, such as Coca-Cola that outsourced large segments of its supply chain.
A strategic alliance is an agreement between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed upon objectives needed while remaining independent organizations.
A strategic partnership is a relationship between two commercial enterprises, usually formalized by one or more business contracts. A strategic partnership will usually fall short of a legal partnership entity, agency, or corporate affiliate relationship. Strategic partnerships can take on various forms from shake hand agreements, contractual cooperation's all the way to equity alliances, either the formation of a joint venture or cross-holdings in each other.
Strategic sourcing is the process of developing channels of supply at the lowest total cost, not just the lowest purchase price. It expands upon traditional organisational purchasing activities to embrace all activities within the procurement cycle, from specification to receipt, payment for goods and services to sourcing production lines where the labor market would increase firms' ROI. Strategic sourcing processes aim for continuous improvement and re-evaluation of the purchasing activities of an organisation.
Contract management or contract administration is the management of contracts made with customers, vendors, partners, or employees. Contract management includes negotiating the terms and conditions in contracts and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions, as well as documenting and agreeing on any changes or amendments that may arise during its implementation or execution. It can be summarized as the process of systematically and efficiently managing contract creation, execution, and analysis for the purpose of maximizing financial and operational performance and minimizing risk.
Bidding is an offer to set a price tag by an individual or business for a product or service or a demand that something be done. Bidding is used to determine the cost or value of something.
On-demand outsourcing is a trend in outsourcing wherein major internal operations processes of a company are being shifted to a provider that is paid for by the number of transactions involved. The business transferring the services pays for the quality, special skills and the competence of the service provider's employees. There has been an expansion of the outsourcing concept to include on-demand outsourcing. This refers to the process undertaken by business managers to adopt an outsourcing policy that ensures that the specific business and supplies including technical manpower are accessed as the need arises. It focuses a business strategy to improve its goods and services and to drive a business towards quality improvement.
Online outsourcing is the business process of contracting third-party providers, which can be overseas, to supply products or services which are delivered and paid for via the Internet.
Creating shared value (CSV) is a business concept first introduced in a 2006 Harvard Business Review article, Strategy & Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility. The concept was further expanded in the January 2011 follow-up piece entitled Creating Shared Value: Redefining Capitalism and the Role of the Corporation in Society. Written by Michael E. Porter, a leading authority on competitive strategy and head of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, and Mark R. Kramer, of the Kennedy School at Harvard University and co-founder of FSG, the article provides insights and relevant examples of companies that have developed deep links between their business strategies and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Porter and Kramer define shared value as "the policies and practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing social and economic conditions in the communities in which it operates", while a review published in 2021 defines the concept as "a strategic process through which corporations can turn social problems into business opportunities".
A relational contract is a contract whose effect is based upon a relationship of trust between the parties. The explicit terms of a relational contract are an outline: implicit terms and understandings that determine the behaviour of the parties. Relational contract theory was originally developed in the United States by the legal scholars Ian Roderick Macneil and Stewart Macaulay. Richard Austen-Baker has more recently proposed a developed version of relational contract theory, called "comprehensive contract theory".
In organizational theory, organizational analysis or industrial analysis is the process of reviewing the development, work environment, personnel, and operation of a business or another type of association. This review is often performed in response to crisis, but may also be carried out as part of a demonstration project, in the process of taking a program to scale, or in the course of regular operations. Conducting a periodic detailed organizational analysis can be a useful way for management to identify problems or inefficiencies that have arisen in the organization but have yet to be addressed, and develop strategies for resolving them.
Performance based contracting (PBC), also known as performance-based logistics (PBL) or performance-based acquisition, is a product and services purchasing strategy used to achieve measurable supplier performance. A PBC approach focuses on developing strategic performance metrics and directly relating contracting payment to performance against these metrics. Common metrics include availability, reliability, maintainability, supportability and total cost of ownership. The primary means of accomplishing this are through incentivized, long-term contracts with specific and measurable levels of operational performance defined by the customer and agreed on by contracting parties. The incentivized performance measures aim to motivate the supplier to implement enhanced practices that offer improved performance and cost effective. This stands in contrast to the conventional transaction-based, or waterfall approach, where payment is related to completion of milestones and project deliverables. In PBC, since a part or the whole payment is tied to the performance of the provider and the purchaser does not get involved in the details of the process, it becomes crucial to define a clear set of requirements to the provider. Occasionally governments fail to define the requirements clearly. This leaves room for providers, either intentionally or unintentionally, to misinterpret the requirements, which creates a game like situation.
A request for association (RFA) or request for collaboration, also called, though less frequently request for partnership, request for partner or request for alliance, is a commercial document issued by a party which invites association with another party. Kate Vitasek et al. refer to a "request for partner" or "request for collaboration" as part of a continuum of RfX approaches in a paper called "Unpacking Collaborative Bidding" published in 2016. "RfX" is a collective term for business invitation processes such as a request for information (RFI), request for proposal (RFP), or request for quotation (RFQ).
Kate Vitasek is an American author and educator. She is a faculty member for Graduate and Executive Education at the University of Tennessee Haslam College of Business Her research focuses on the Vested outsourcing business model, sourcing business model theory, the relational contract, and collaborative win-win business relationships.
References
- 1 2 Vitasek, Kate; Ledyard, Mike; Manrodt, Karl (2010). Vested Outsourcing, Second Edition: Five Rules That Will Transform Outsourcing. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-137-29719-8.
- ↑ Vitasek, Kate and D. Michael Ledyard. (October 2010). Playing to Win. Outsource Magazine, retrieved from http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk/articles/item/3565-playing-to-win Archived 2012-04-24 at the Wayback Machine .
- ↑ Hart, Oliver; Frydlinger, David; Vitasek, Kate. "A New Approach to Contracts". Harvard Business Review Magazine. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
- ↑ Vitasek, K., Ledyard, M. and Cummins, T., Vested Outsourcing: a Better Way to Structure Outsourcing Contracts, University of Tennessee Centre for Executive Education, p 8, published September 2012, accessed 23 May 2021
- ↑ Vitasek, Kate, Art Van Bodegraven and Ken Ackerman (July 2011), Options in incentive procurement: What are they and when to use them. Warehousing Forum, Vol. 26, No. 8. Retrieved from
- ↑ Logan, Daniel with special contributor Jim Eckler. (August 4, 2011). Vested outsourcing. Slaw.ca. Retrieved from http://www.slaw.ca/2011/08/04/vested-outsourcing/.
- ↑ Eckler, Jim. A Better Way to Outsource Business Functions. Retrieved from ecklerassociates.com/uploads/ReinventingOutsourcing.pdf.
- ↑ (Quarter 3 2011). Outsourcing for mutual success. CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly. Retrieved from http://www.supplychainquarterly.com/news/201103forward_outsourcing/.
- ↑ Vitasek, Kate; et al. (2012). Vested: How P&G, McDonald's, and Microsoft are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0230341708.