Title: Risk-related global production flexibility

Authors: Lars Ehrengren

Addresses: School of Business, Stockholm University, Kraftriket, SE-10691, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: The background and reason for this study is the ongoing change from competition to strategic business cooperation among organisations in world business today. Another reason is the assumption that the choice of cooperation structure will lead to higher flexibility and lower production-risk exposure. More specifically, the conditions behind the choice between venture and alliance for global industrial production are examined in order to know how to keep the flexibility to change the cooperation structure when the business environment conditions change. A theoretical scheme is developed and the key findings are illustrated with three examples from global production in the car and truck industry and in the telecom industry: Volvo/Renault, Volvo/Mitsubishi and Sony/Ericsson.

Keywords: alliance life cycle; business environment; risk control; cooperation structure; flexibility; production cooperation; structured risk management; venture life cycle; global production; strategic management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBE.2006.010926

International Journal of Business Environment, 2006 Vol.1 No.3, pp.301 - 319

Published online: 18 Sep 2006 *

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