Configurations Of The Organizational Boundary Between The Enterprise And Supplier

An organizational boundary (OB) is the demarcation between an organization and the external environment. It separates one organization from others. The organizational boundary is both physical existence and subjective cognition. As independent business entities, the enterprise and supplier both have their own business strategies and objectives. Therefore, they tend to focus on the improvement of their efficiency and effectiveness in their business operations so as to achieve their strategic objectives. Consequently, interest-driven business entities will safeguard their OB to maximize their own interests and benefits. The cognition of OB will be further reinforced when cooperating with other companies. This phenomenon encumbers cooperation to some extent. Therefore, it is of great significance to companies to effectively span or even eliminate the boundaries between business partners and to improve boundary permeability because, in doing so, companies can establish and enhance their competitiveness by utilizing the partner's advantage. This research is focused on the OB issues between the enterprise and supplier. The purpose of this research is to analyze theoretically the configuration features of the boundaries between the enterprise and the supplier (ESB) and to formulate optimal model of boundary configuration between cooperative partners so that they can establish and reinforce their competitiveness by means of the supplier's advantage on a win-win basis.This research makes an in-depth research into the OB rationale by categorizing OB types, proposing characteristics of OB, which include openness, permeability, criticality and pullulation, analyzing boundary activities such as catching and disassociating. The formation of ESB is analyzed in terms of the formation principle and process and a configuration model of ESB is established, which have laid a theoretical foundation for the research of ESB.Influencing factors of ESB configurations are analyzed in terms of macro and micro environmental aspects. PEST factors and industrial environment have great impacts on ESB configurations. Interests and benefits of cooperating parties as well as their organizational factors, on the other hand, also have great impacts. The configuration features of ESB are subsequently analyzed from three...