| Information Processing alternatives for Coping with Manufacturing Environment Complexity |
| | Flynn, Barbara | Wake Forest U. | | |
| | Flynn, E. James | Wake Forest U. | Jim.Flynn@mba.wfu.edu | 336-758-1888 |
| | Investment in information systems and technology is often justified as a necessary strategy for coping with the increased complexity and information needs of today's manufacturing environments. However, the world class manufacturing perspective suggests that increased complexity is not always necessary to meet the needs of markets and customers. The organization theory literature is drawn upon and Galbraith's seminal information processing model is applied to a manufacturing environment, along with additional propositions from the world class manufacturing perspective, to test the role of various information processing alternatives for coping with increased environmental complexity. These include reduction of information processing needs through self-contained tasks, increased information system capacity through investments in information systems and the use of lateral relations, and reduction of the sources of environmental complexity. Moderated regression and multiple discriminant analysis are used to test hypotheses in a sample of 164 manufacturing plants in the machinery, electronics and transportation components industries in the U.S., Japan, Germany, Italy and England. |
| | Keywords: Manufacturing Info Systems; ; |
| Information Utilization in Global Manufacturing Network Design and Management |
| | Smith, Sheldon R. | Brigham Young U.--Hawaii | smiths@byuh.edu | (808)-293-3588 |
| | Fawcett, Stanley E. | Brigham Young U. | Stan_Fawcett@byu.edu | (801) 378-5890 |
| | This study examines whether the application of strategic and operational managerial accounting information, in a specific global
setting, is related to a firm's manufacturing and logistics performance. Survey data from U.S. firms manufacturing in Mexico
provide empirical evidence supporting a modified version of the theorized structural equation model. The data support positive
relationships between (1) economic globalization and strategic information, (2) strategic information and operational information,
and (3) operational information and manufacturing/logistics performance. Accounting research related to operations management
and global manufacturing is limited. Thus, even though this study is confined to a specific geographic area, it provides insights
into the global nature of managerial accounting and its relationship to global manufacturing network design and management. |
| | Keywords: Global Manufacturing Networks; Managerial Accounting; Structural Equations |
| Inward Operational Technology Transfer: An Information Processing-Based Typology |
| | Stock, Gregory Neal | Hofstra U. | stock_greg@hotmail.com | (516) 463-5723 |
| | Tatikonda, Mohan V. | U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill | mohan_tatikonda@unc.edu | (919)-962-0050 |
| | The objective of this paper is to identify effective managerial approaches for the transfer of technologies. We develop a conceptual typology of inward operational technology transfer. Operational technology includes product and process technologies. This paper builds on but differs from extant literature on technology transfer by adopting the perspective of the technology recipient (hence "inward transfer") rather than the technology source. Further, the paper complements extant literature on technology implementation by focusing on the transfer process between source and recipient, a process which concludes with technology implementation. The typology is based on organizational information processing theory (OIPT) and prior theoretical and empirical research. The typology applies the general theory of organizational information processing to the specific context of inward transfer of operational technology. Two key dimensions of technology transfer are inherent in the typology. The first dimension, technology uncertainty, follows from the concept of task uncertainty from OIPT; the second dimension, cooperative interaction, follows from the OIPT concept of coordination and control mechanisms. The application of OIPT to this context requires consideration of effective "matches" of the type of technology to be transferred and the mode of the transfer. Four categories of technology type, arrayed by degree of technology uncertainty, and four categories of transfer mode, arrayed by degree of cooperation interaction, are developed and described. Scenarios of effective matches of technology type and transfer mode are presented, and implications of the typology for theory and practice are discussed. |
| | Keywords: Technology transfer; Operational typology; Information processing theory |