It is important to recognize the change of management environment in the dynamic global market: a critical success factor for global firms is to recognize the trend of changing management environment and take a counter measure. The primary objective of this thesis is to investigate the interplay among management environment, production systems, and outsourcing network. In this research, we show that changes in management environment force global firms to reform their production systems, which in turn affect the structuring of outsourcing network.
This thesis consists of three parts. The first part contains a literature review, description of the aircraft industry, and our research framework. The analysis is based on the literature on organizational change, production systems, and outsourcing network. The second part consists of the case studies on three subject companies. Each case study is analyzed in three parts, i.e., management environment, MPC classification schema, and strategic dualism. Finally we suggest some implications for future evolution of the production systems in the aircraft industry.
From the case analysis, we have derived an inference that the three key constructs in our research, i.e., management environment, production systems, and outsourcing network, are indeed interacting each other, and affect each other's evolutionary patterns. A primary managerial implication rooted upon the conclusion is that in order to retain any competitive advantage, a global firm must take into account the interacting evolution among management environment surrounding the firm, its production system, and outsourcing network simultaneously. At a more practical level, the firm must adjust its production system in conformance to the changes in its management environment, and also its outsourcing strategy accordingly.
