Dr Sun Hye Lee

Increasingly, core activities-including research and development (R&D), innovation and design-are being outsourced in practice. However, the research on this trend has focused primarily on R&D and innovation outsourcing. This study considers the relatively less investigated area of design outsourcing and key aspects of its management. Interviews with design experts point to distinct objectives for domestic outsourcing and offshore outsourcing. Generally, efficiency coupled with high quality is pursued by domestic outsourcing, whereas creativity that is tailored to firm particularities is expected from offshore outsourcing. The objectives are intrinsically challenging, especially for the unmeasurable criteria including quality and creativity. This study finds that there are key aspects to be considered to accomplish the objectives: supplier selection and risk mitigation. While further exploring these factors, the study sheds light on the role of in-house designers overseeing the selection and managing the risks. The findings of this study are an important addition to the body of literature on design management, where there has been an increasing emphasis on the critical role played by design management in corporate performance, but a paucity of understandings on the effective management of design outsourcing.

Labour issues in global supply chains have been a thorny problem for both buyer firms and their suppliers. Research initially focused mostly on the bilateral relationship between buyer firms and suppliers, looking at arm's-length and close collaboration modes, and the associated mechanisms of coercion and cooperation. Yet continuing problems in the global supply chain suggest that neither governance type offers a comprehensive solution to the problem. This study investigates collaborative governance, an alternative governance type that is driven by buyer firms setting up a coalition with competitor firms to increase leverage and address the supplier and/or host country-specific labour issues. Based on interviews with managers involved in the establishment and management of such coalitions and supplier firms in the garment industry, we examine the rationale behind collaborative governance and discuss its opportunities and challenges in addressing labour issues in global supply chains.