Few issues are more important to states' security than their ability to acquire modern weaponry. Today, advanced industrial democracies possess three options for doing this. In principle, they can: ...autonomously produce their own armaments, import them from foreign suppliers, or collaborate with other states to co-produce common weapons. In this study, we examine the factors driving state decisions to either collaboratively or autonomously procure advanced weaponry. To this end, we analyse French and British decisions about whether or not to collaborate in the domain of combat aircraft. To preview our conclusion, we draw on the Varieties of Capitalism approach to argue that the underlying institutional structures of national political economies explain why otherwise similar states have enacted divergent policies. Within Étatist France, dense exchanges and close relationships within elite networks enable large defence contractors to veto government decisions that contravene their preferences. By way of contrast, Britain's liberal market economy empowers its government to impose its preference for collaborative projects onto aircraft manufacturers, even when the latter attempt to lobby in favour of promising national designs. Thus, what variety of capitalism a state practises determines whether governments or contractors occupy the metaphorical cockpit when it comes to making procurement policies.
The French defence industry underwent major transformations from 1961 onwards, laying the foundations for today's defence industrial and technological base. A new organization, known as the DMA ...(Délégation Ministérielle pour l′Armement11Now DGA, Direction Générale de l’Armement (Directorate General of Armaments). In this paper, “DMA” refers to the 1961–1977 period. The term “directorate” designates this administration after 1977.), directed all research, design and production processes for new equipment. However, the transformation was incomplete, and government owned defence production facilities were not transformed into companies until after the end of the Cold War. The DMA lost control of most defence production facilities, and refocused its activities on expertise and project management. Today, it must meet the challenges of innovation in a changing institutional context.
Military power is central to diplomacy and much of international relations, yet common quantitative measures have limited surface validity. This limitation stems from focusing on latent power and ...only indirectly incorporating major weapon systems. I contend that weapons are central to military power and present a new measure of country military power based primarily on armaments. The measure includes major naval, air and land weapons as well as nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capability. I examine the surface, content and context validity of the measure and compare it to existing measures. I show that this measure of material military power (MMP) has more surface and context validity than alternative measures. I find that MMP better predicts war outcomes, better accounts for militarized threats, and performs well as a control variable for country power.
This article explores economic patriotism within the evolution of European defence procurement policies. As European integration advances, the nature of the patrie underpinning interventions in ...defence industries evolves, and becomes partially post-national. That said, 'national' boundaries endure, and special relationship among national actors continue to exist. European co-operation in armaments production involves an ambiguous blend of partial liberalization and the implementation of industrial policy at a new level. Tensions among actors about both the nature of defence industrial policy (liberal vs protectionist) and its level of implementation (national/European/global) explain the evolution of the European prerogatives in this sector.
•The sustainable supplier selection and order allocation problem is considered.•The issues in establishing long-term buyer-supplier relationships are addressed.•A multi-agent system approach is ...proposed to address the identified gap.•The applicability of the approach is tested by a real-world case application.
Recently, incorporating sustainability into the buyer-supplier sourcing decisions has achieved a considerable amount of attentions among researchers and industrial enterprises who are attempting to move towards sustainable production. Moreover, by investigating further in the buyer-supplier relationships, the literature suggests that proper communication and structured information exchange are important components in establishing a long-term partnership and maintaining such a relationship. Toward this end, a Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) approach is proposed as a mean of automating and facilitating the process of sustainable supplier selection and order allocation (SSS&OA) resulting in a more co-operative partnership. This research shows that financial performance of manufacturing companies adopting environmental and social sustainability in their operations strategy enhanced their competitive advantage that can lead to long-term sourcing relationships for the buyer-supplier dyad. Additionally, it was also shown that applying MASs to the SSS&OA problem can be utilized as an approach to facilitate communications and automate information exchange processes in Supply Chains (SCs) where suppliers and manufacturer are looking to maintain a long-term SC partnership. The applicability of the developed MAS approach and its incorporated sustainable supplier evaluation and order allocation models is demonstrated using an adopted practical scenario from an industrial case study operating in the electronics sector in medical device industry.
The paper presents an analysis of the operational properties of paint coatings foruse in military technology in the field of masking. The assessment of the propertieswas performed on the basis of ...measurements of the surface geometric structureand adhesion using the peel method. The measurements of specular gloss, colourin the range of 400-700 nm and reflectance in the range of 350-1200 nm weremade in relation to the requirements of the Polish Defence Standard NO-80-A200.Coating systems are characterised by their low roughness and good adhesion. Dueto their operational properties, the developed coating systems can be used onarmaments and military equipment.
Strategy map of servitization Rabetino, Rodrigo; Kohtamäki, Marko; Gebauer, Heiko
International journal of production economics,
10/2017, Volume:
192
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
By representing the servitization of three leading corporations via a strategy map, this multiple-case study discusses how the strategic logic of servitization can be explained by linking the key ...practices adopted by manufacturers to support critical processes while shifting their focus to project-based customer solutions. The results draw on data collected from solution providers operating in the metal and machinery industries headquartered in Finland. By examining the strategic actions, tools, and processes behind the implementation of servitization, this study extends recent debates on the service-based business models of manufacturing companies. For servitization theory, this study develops a strategy map for a solution provider. For manufacturing firms, this study provides a framework and a tool for benchmarking, developing and implementing a strategy while mitigating the processes of long-term value creation and appropriation.
In order to keep up with the pace of innovation, military firms have recently launched a series of open innovation (OI) initiatives to search for and integrate external knowledge into their internal ...development process. Adopting OI in such a secretive environment unlocks new possibilities to analyze how firms can pursue openness and secrecy. This article builds on a qualitative research conducted inside a large military firm that has implemented an inbound OI strategy. Relying on multiple case studies and interviews with individual players involved in the firm's OI initiatives, we analyzed how these players deploy secrecy practices when participating to OI projects. They actually combine cognitive practices (aiming at modulating the contextual depth of the knowledge revealed through reframing) with relational practices (aiming at controlling the visibility and exposure of this knowledge). We highlight how these combinations evolve during the lifecycle of OI partnerships. By emphasizing different modes by which individual actors practice secrecy in OI, we contribute to previous research addressing how organizations navigate the paradox of openness. Besides, this study proposes new theoretical insights on the role and features of secrecy practices in innovation activities, and thus contributes to the emerging research field of managerial secrecy.
•Secrecy in open innovation is managed through cognitive and relational practices.•Cognitive practices are about moderating contextual depth of knowledge.•Relational practices are about moderating the visibility breadth of knowledge.•OI players combine secrecy practices to navigate the paradox of openness.
In today's increasingly interconnected world, co‐opetition has emerged as a new business practice among many high‐tech firms. The boundaries between cooperation and competition becomes vague, and ...rivals engage in collaborative activities. This study develops an analytical model to investigate the dual sourcing decision of the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the presence of a competitive supplier (i.e., frenemy) as well as a non‐competitive supplier who nevertheless suffers from unreliable production yield. We study the competitive supplier's dual channel decision if it prefers operating both component‐selling business and self‐branded business, and find that the OEM always prefers supplier diversification even though the additional non‐competitive supplier is unreliable. Interestingly, our results reveal that the non‐competitive supplier's expected profit is unimodal in its production technology level, which suggests the non‐competitive supplier may not have incentive to improve its production technology once it reaches a threshold. Furthermore, we analyze the credibility of the competitive supplier's threat to terminate the supply of the components to OEM as a response of OEM's engagement of a new supplier. We show that this termination of component‐selling business by competitive supplier is a non‐credible threat to prevent OEM from seeking the alternative supplier.
PDF
