The 2008 crash has left all the established economic doctrines - equilibrium models, real business cycles, disequilibria models - in disarray. Part of the problem is due to Smith’s "veil of ignorance": individuals unknowingly pursue society’s interest and, as a result, have no clue as to the macroeconomic effects of their actions: witness the Keynes and Leontief multipliers, the concept of value added, fiat money, Engel’s law and technical progress, to name but a few of the macrofoundations of microeconomics. A good viewpoint to take bearings anew lies in comparing the post-Great Depression institutions with those emerging from Thatcher and Reagan’s economic policies: deregulation, exogenous vs. endoge- nous money, shadow banking vs. Volcker’s Rule. Very simply, the banks, whose lending determined deposits after Roosevelt, and were a public service became private enterprises whose deposits determine lending. These underlay the great moderation preceding 2006, and the subsequent crash.

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism

Models that depict innovation as a smooth, well-behaved linear process badly misspecify the nature and direction of the causal factors at work. Innovation is complex, uncertain, somewhat disorderly, and subject to changes of many sorts. Innovation is also difficult to measure and demands close coordination of adequate technical knowledge and excellent market judgment in order to satisfy economic, technological, and other types of constraints—all simultaneously. The process of innovation must be viewed as a series of changes in a complete system not only of hardware, but also of market environment, production facilities and knowledge, and the social contexts of the innovation organization.

An Overview of Innovation

Everybody knows that digital technology has revolutionized our economy and our lifestyles. But how many of us really understand the drivers behind the technology – the significance of going digital; the miniaturization of electronic devices; the role of venture capital in financing the revolution; the importance of research and development? How many of us understand what it takes to make money from innovative technologies? Should we worry about manufacturing going offshore? What is the role of India and China in the digital economy? Drawing on a lifetime’s experience in the industry, as an engineer, a senior manager, and as a partner in a global venture capital firm, Henry Kressel offers an expert personalized answer to all these questions. He explains how the technology works, why it matters, how it is financed, and what the key lessons are for public policy.

Competing for the Future

Historically, management theory has ignored the constraints imposed by the biophysical (natural) environment. Building upon resource-based theory, this article attempts to fill this void by proposing a natural-resource-based view of the firm—a theory of competitive advantage based upon the firm's relationship to the natural environment. It is composed of three interconnected strategies: pollution prevention, product stewardship, and sustainable development. Propositions are advanced for each of these strategies regarding key resource requirements and their contributions to sustained competitive advantage.

A natural resource-based view of the firm

An intertwined supply network (ISN) is an entirety of interconnected supply chains (SC) which, in their integrity secure the provision of society and markets with goods and services. The ISNs are o...

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02568319/document

Viability of intertwined supply networks: extending the supply chain resilience angles towards survivability. A position paper motivated by COVID-19 outbreak

The interface between “product design and engineering” and manufacturing: A review of the literature and empirical evidence

(2000). Decision models for outsourcing and core competencies in manufacturing. International Journal of Production Research: Vol. 38, No. 17, pp. 4085-4096.

Decision models for outsourcing and core competencies in manufacturing

Purpose – The theories of transaction‐cost economics, the resource‐based view and the core competencies approach have been used extensively to justify the rationale behind strategic decisions on outsourcing, but their validity has not been investigated yet in comparative empirical research. Additionally, no study has examined the operational effects of these decisions in‐depth. The purpose of this paper is to fill these two gaps in the academic literature.Design/methodology/approach – A literature review confirms the existence of these gaps and informs hypotheses based on the three theories. Additionally, the model for continuous decision making on outsourcing is used to systematically collect data from five cases studies. The cases – all make‐to‐order or engineering‐to‐order – have been analysed on effects for operational performance and control resulting from strategic decision making on outsourcing.Findings – From this evaluation, it appears that these companies perform weakly on the control of the out...

Impact of strategic decision making for outsourcing on managing manufacturing

Traditionally, most literature has focused on the impact of Order Entry Points on manufacturing and logistics. Current literature about these entry points undervalues the effects on the engineering process, and the writings on modular design hardly discuss the relationship with operations management. To assess and review the consequences for engineering management, a framework has been developed, based on earlier research, covering the standard working methods for the conversion of customer requirements into components of a modular product architecture, the management of customer-order activities and the separate development of new product architectures for future demands. Five case studies served as a base for the investigation of engineering management. Although it might be expected that operations management for the engineering process should not differ from that of manufacturing, the case studies prove otherwise. The characteristics of engineering activities allow a more limited range of interventions...

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Engineering management and the Order Entry Point

Rob Dekker’s (R)Evolution: Organizations and the Dynamics of the Environment investigates the possible changes needed for industrial organizations to adapt to and remain competitive in their ever evolving environment. (R)Evolution’s main area of contribution to these very complex issues is embedded in the work’s ambitious attempt to borrow from evolutionary biology and genetics not only metaphors but also concepts and models to be adapted to the management of business organizations. The work provides us with a comprehensive vision of adaptation and variation in the business community, integrating various intellectual inputs which are based on an evolutionary vision of economic behavior. Using an extensive study of the literature in management science, and applying new models and methodologies in numerous case studies, Dekkers draws many insightful conclusions including the claim that companies often evolve slower than generally expected. Furthermore the research calls into question the effectiveness of the common practice of corporate reorganization. Embracing and merging most major contemporary developments in the theories of change into a comprehensive integrated approach, (R)Evolution is an invaluable resource for researchers specializing in the management of technological change.

Rob Dekkers

Papers

The interface between “product design and engineering” and manufacturing: A review of the literature and empirical evidence

Decision models for outsourcing and core competencies in manufacturing

Impact of strategic decision making for outsourcing on managing manufacturing

Engineering management and the Order Entry Point

(R)Evolution : Organizations and the Dynamics of the Environment