Product Variety, Sourcing Complexity, and the Bottleneck of Coordination
Product Variety, Sourcing Complexity, and the Bottleneck of Coordination
复制标题
产品多样性、采购复杂性和协调瓶颈
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.2833551
复制
发表时间：
2016
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
X. Wan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Yue Maggie Zhou;X. Wan
本文研究了以多样化为主要产品战略的企业的协调负担问题。我们认为，产品多样性放大了生产规模经济和分销范围经济之间的紧张关系，从而产生复杂的企业内采购关系。采购复杂性降低了企业的协调绩效，并为组织设计带来了困境：具有采购中心的分层结构降低了采购复杂性，但可能在中心处产生瓶颈。我们实证研究了2010-2011年一家大型软饮料装瓶公司约300个配送中心的运营数据。研究结果支持了我们的假设，阐明了多产品企业的复杂性来源和管理产品多样性对组织设计的挑战。
This paper studies the coordination burden for firms that pursue variety as their main product strategy. We propose that product variety magnifies the tension between scale economy in production and scope economy in distribution, giving rise to complex intra-firm sourcing relationships. Sourcing complexity worsens coordination performance for the firm and poses a dilemma for organization design: A hierarchical structure with sourcing hubs reduces sourcing complexity but can create bottlenecks at the hubs. We empirically examine operations data for about 300 distribution centers within a major soft drink bottling company in 2010–2011. Results support our hypotheses, illuminating the source of complexity in multi-product firms and the challenge for organization design in managing product variety.