Effects of resource occupation and decision authority decentralisation on performance of the IoT-based virtual enterprise in central China

Abstract

Enterprises in China are extensively involved in collaborative virtual enterprise (VE) supported by the internet of things (IoT). This paper investigates the effects of member enterprises’ resource occupation on performance of the IoT-based VE, and examines how such effects are moderated by decision authority decentralisation. We obtained the research data from a survey administered to 141 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that participate in IoT-based VEs. Hierarchical regression analysis was adopted to test the proposed hypotheses. Our findings suggest that information and operational resources are positively associated with both business and market performance. Strategic decision authority decentralised to SMEs with superior information or operational resources enhances the overall performance, whereas decentralisation of operational decision authority facilitates the positive effects of operational resource on performance. Our study provides directive guidance for IoT-based VEs to cultivate and acquire specific superior resources, and allocate decision authorities reasonably for effective resource utilisation and collaboration.

KEYWORDS:

• Resource occupation
• decision authority
• decentralisation
• performance measures
• virtual enterprise

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to four anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions that improve the content of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province [No. 2008085QG341], ‘the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities’ [Nos. JZ2019HGTA0051, JZ2019HGBZ0131] and National Natural Science Foundation of China [Nos. 71521001, 71871080, 71922009, 71801071].

Notes on contributors

Zhiping Zhou

Dr Zhiping Zhou receives his Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Hefei University of Technology in 2017, and serves as assistant professor in School of Management, Hefei University of Technology. His recent research interests include optimal modelling and empirical study of decision authority allocation, R&D task assignment, incentive contract design in strategic alliances under the environment of emerging information technology. He has published over 10 papers in academic journals, such as Optimization Letters, Journal of Industrial and Management Optimization and Journal of Cleaner Production.

Jun Pei

Dr Jun Pei serves as associate professor in School of Management, Hefei University of Technology. His research interests cover production scheduling, business analytics, industrial internet, and optimisation in smart manufacturing. His research has appeared in premier academic journals, such as Production and Operations Management, INFORMS Journal on Computing, Omega and European Journal of Operational Research. He also serves as associate editor at Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Journal of Global Optimization, Optimization Letters, Energy Systems, Computational Social Networks, and SN Operations Research Forum, and a Lead Guest Editor at Annals of Operations Research.

Xinbao Liu

Dr Xinbao Liu is a Cheung Kong Scholar Distinguished Professor in School of Management, Hefei University of Technology. He serves as executive director of the Systems Engineering Society of China and chairman of the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Engineering Committee of the Systems Engineering Society of China. His research interests include decision science and technology, intelligent decision support system, complex product manufacturing process optimisation, etc. He has published more than 150 papers in academic journals, such as Production and Operations Management, Omega, European Journal of Operational Research and Journal of the Operational Research Society.

Hong Fu

Dr Hong Fu received his Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 2015. He is currently an assistant professor in School of Management, Hefei University of Technology, China. His research interests are mainly in supply chain management and operations management. He has published over 20 papers in academic journals, such as Omega, Annals of Operations Research, International Journal of Production Research and Computers & Industrial Engineering.

Panos M. Pardalos

Dr Panos M. Pardalos serves as distinguished professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Florida. Additionally, he is the Paul and Heidi Brown Preeminent Professor of industrial and systems engineering. He is also an affiliated faculty member of the computer and information science department, the Hellenic Studies Center, and the biomedical engineering programme. Pardalos is a world leading expert in global and combinatorial optimisation. His recent research interests include network design problems, optimisation in telecommunications, e-commerce, data mining, biomedical applications, and massive computing.