Avantage comparatif | EPFL Graph Search

En économie, l'avantage comparatif est le concept principal de la théorie traditionnelle du commerce international. Il a été approché par Robert Torrens en 1815 et démontré pour la première fois par l’économiste britannique David Ricardo en 1817 dans ses Principes de l’économie politique et de l’impôt. La théorie associée à l’avantage comparatif explique que, dans un contexte de libre-échange, chaque pays a intérêt à se spécialiser dans la production pour laquelle il dispose de l'écart de productivité (ou du coût) le plus fort en sa faveur, ou le plus faible en sa défaveur, comparativement à ses partenaires. Cette production est celle pour laquelle il détient un « avantage comparatif ». Selon Paul Samuelson (prix Nobel d'économie en 1970), il s'agit du meilleur exemple d'un principe économique indéniable mais contraire à l'intuition de personnes intelligentes. La conclusion principale de cette théorie est, que pour un pays, l’ouverture au commerce international est toujours avantageu

A Digital Platform connecting Academia and Small Businesses: An opportunity for Knowledge Management Experiments

Quentin Adrien Cavillier

Digital transformation is one of the biggest phenomena of this decade. One enabler of this revolution was cloud computing. Today, software engineers can deliver software as a service (SaaS), which is accessible to users through the Internet. Slack, Shopify, and Dropbox are examples of successful SaaS. We are experiencing an emergence of numerous small web applications with easy-to-use features for specific domains such as project management, accounting, resources management, customer relationships, and so forth. Thus, SaaS has been recognised as particularly well suited for the digital journey of small enterprises. However, surveys conducted by governmental agencies reveal a low adoption rate of SaaS by small enterprises in traditional sectors such as construction, services, and dealership. Previous studies have highlighted a lack of top management support, a weak relative advantage perceived, and a lack of knowledge as the key reasons for this low level of adoption. Whilst academic research defines these critical factors, it has not found potential solutions to mitigate them. Thus, this thesis presents two exploratory studies to enhance the adoption of digital practices by small traditional enterprises (STEs). A first study explored the value of leading collaborative projects between students and STEs about the assessment of SaaS solutions. A secondary objective of this initiative was the design of a platform acting as an open innovation platform. A three-year study allowed the completion of thirty-nine projects and the testing of two different platform designs. The feedback from students demonstrated the value of a well-structured platform composed of different management models for each project phase. Furthermore, 67 per cent of the STEs involved on the platform acknowledged the value of such collaborative projects. However, the collaborations did not improve top management support, and projects tended to stagnate because of various organisational factors. A second study, using a mixed-methods research design, was performed to explore the relations amongst the organisational factors acting as enablers and barriers to the digitalisation of STEs. The objective was to improve understanding of TSEs' situation and devise a proposition to enhance top management support. An academic contribution of this study was the design and application of a conceptual framework combining organisational factors from the literature on dynamic capabilities, organisational inertia, and intellectual capital. The combination of the qualitative observations and quantitative results highlighted the importance of the sensing and leadership capabilities for STE directors. They also revealed the mediator effect of the relational capability on the development of these latter. Therefore, this thesis makes important contributions to the literature on open innovation by defining a new field for leading knowledge management experiments. It also contributes to develop a comprehensive overview of the organisational factors affecting STEs' adoption. A further major contribution is the potential value of the digital platform to innovate the services of practitioners, such as governmental agencies and consultants, that support STEs on their digital transformation journey. In conclusion, this research is valuable in opening the discussion about potential innovations that might reshape the relationship academia-business.

EPFL2019

Knowledge Specialization in Ph.D. Student Groups

Annamaria Conti, Fabiana Visentin

Researchers have argued that specialization within groups yields productivity gains. We evaluate this statement with a focus on groups of Ph.D. students. Using an established technique in computer science called Latent Dirichlet Allocation, we construct a novel measure of the dispersion of Ph.D. students' research interests based on their dissertation abstracts. We then relate this measure to Ph.D. group publications. For our study, we use a rich dataset on groups of Ph.D. students who studied at a major Swiss University, during the 1993-2008 period. We find robust evidence that within-group knowledge specialization is associated with a larger number of publications. However, when specialization increases beyond a critical level, it hinders the group's publication output. We interpret these results as an indication that gains, in the amount of research output, can be achieved if Ph.D. students specialize according to their comparative advantages. However, beyond a certain level, knowledge specialization has a detrimental impact on research output, due to increasing communication costs and an increased likelihood of conflict insurgence.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2014

A model for the design of effective and resilient supply chain security management systems

Ximena Gutiérrez Rueda

The current business environment has become more risky and variable. In particular, the recent terrorist attacks against western economies have revealed the vulnerability of global supply chains. These events showed that companies that move cargo internationally are subjected to a broader spectrum of risks, for which they might not be yet prepared. The perception of a higher level of security risks has motivated a wide variety of efforts from the academic, public and private sectors to increase global supply chain security. First, governments, border agencies and international organizations are designing and promoting new security initiatives and regulations to force companies to take more responsibility for the security of their supply chains. Second, academics have started to apply traditional concepts of risk and security management to the supply chain context, leading to the theory of supply chain security management (SCSM). Third, companies are following the new mandatory security regulations. However, most of them are still waiting before implementing those initiatives which are not yet mandatory. At the moment, each of these parties is approaching this problem from different a perspective. However, they all face one main common challenge: Increasing security without affecting supply chain performance or creating new trade barriers. The management of security in a supply chain environment has been usually associated with the implementation of rules and activities that are obstacles for the efficient flow of goods, non-value adding operations or cost generators. It is therefore necessary for these parties, to develop security initiatives which enhance security without affecting supply chain performance or jeopardizing trade. This study builds on the theory of SCSM which is still in its infancy. The literature review shows that some of the most relevant gaps are: i) the disconnection between the governments and border agencies' security initiatives and the theory developed by academics, ii) the non-inclusion of a systematic, holistic and process perspective in the design of SCSM initiatives, and iii) the lack of adequate management tools for companies to implement and maintain the new SCSM initiatives. Based on these literature gaps and the challenges imposed by the new supply chain security risk context, the main research question of this study is: How companies and governments can develop effective (capable of reducing the probability of disruptions occurrence) and resilient ( preparing the supply chain to recover from disruptions) SCSM systems? The main goal of the study is to develop a SCSM model which can help companies and governments to make use of the most relevant lessons from the existing academic theories and the new security initiatives, by integrating them in one practical comprehensive management tool. The research study investigates the supply chain security management by companies with large experience in managing high-risk areas and products. Initially, a survey is conducted to study how some of these companies have increased their security level by implementing a voluntary security program. The analysis of this data enables the identification of some of the factors which can positively impact the success of these programs and confirms the systemic nature of supply chain security management programs. Following these results, supply chain security systems are studied from a more holistic perspective by carrying out two in-depth case studies. The analysis and comparison of these case studies allow the identification of the most relevant challenges that these companies face to manage their supply chain security. Furthermore, they show that the traditional methods of corporate security management present several obstacles to deal with these challenges. The lessons and insights obtained through the analysis of the empirical data, together with the SCSM best practices identified in the literature, are integrated into the proposed "Supply Chain Security Management Model". This model provides a concrete framework to help practitioners adding the process dimension to the management of security. The framework also allows a better understanding and managing of the interactions between the supply chain and the security systems. To complete this research study, the model is validated by applying it to the two case study companies. The results of this initial exercise show that the proposed SCSM model constitutes an innovative management tool for the evaluation of SCSM systems, which drives the attention to critical points that were neglected in the past. This practical application exemplifies how the model can be used to collect and represent in a comprehensive way the security related information that is usually spread amongst different company functions and business partners. The main advantage of such representation is that it allows for a quick identification of the areas with potential for improvement.