Economics, Strategy, Policy, Organization, and Operations in a Globalizing Economy (ESPOOGE)

Manufacturing in Finland and other Western countries has confronted at least two major challenges in the past 15 years: outsourcing and transfer of operations to low-cost countries, and the management of geographically dispersed operations within the multinational firm. The objective of the project is to create scientific knowledge in the domain of value-creating processes and their management. The research aims at analyzing as well as affecting the trend of dispersion of value-adding operations across the globe and its implications for organizations. The project focuses on manufacturing and service operations, logistics, industrial engineering, and technology management, which will be examined using inter- and multidisciplinary approaches. The research is conducted in three priority areas which are complementary in that they address the phenomenon at multiple levels of analysis:

The macro-organizational level deals with macro- and microeconomic forces driving the phenomenon and implications to economic policy.
The organizational level focuses on organization-level strategic and operational responses to the external influences including how companies develop and sustain competitive advantage through their operations and manage the coordination and interdependencies of geographically dispersed operations.
The micro-organizational level deals with how individual industrial firms tackle on a day-to-day basis the challenges posed by globally distributed activities including specific actions, technologies and operational tactics and how they operate in complex networks of firms under uncertainty.               
The host organization of the project is Helsinki University of Technology, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management (HUT/DIEM). The project is carried out in collaboration with the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA).

Project leader
Professor Eero Eloranta
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, P.O.Box 5500, 02015 TKK
Tel. +358 9 451 5026
Email: Eero.Eloranta(at)hut.fi