用交易成本经济学解释会计外包外文翻译（可编辑） .doc

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1、用交易成本经济学解释会计外包外文翻译 外文翻译 Using Transaction Cost Economics to explain outsourcing of accountingMaterial Source:/0. Author:Patricia, Gerrit Outsourcing can be defined as the act of subcontracting out all or parts of some function in a firm to an external party. The transaction cost theory of the firm T

2、CE, introduced by Coase 1937, has become a standard framework to explain why some firms choose to organize a given function internally, while other firms decide to outsource that function to an external party. An extensive part of the empirical research on outsourcing adopts this TCE framework Boern

3、e and Marcher 2002. By considering the relative cost of transactions using its own employees on the one hand and external parties on the other, TCE tries to explain how companies are organized. Simply stated by Klein 2005, transactions differ in the degree to which relationship-specific assets are i

4、nvolved asset specificity, the amount of uncertainty about the future environmental uncertainty, the amount of uncertainty about other parties actions behavior uncertainty, and the frequency with which a given transaction occurs Many empirical studies have investigated the outsourcing of production

5、tasks so-called backward integration and found that asset specificity is a significant driver in the outsourcing decision, both when studied within a single industry and in cross-sectional studies e.g., John and Weitz 1988; Masten et al. 1989; Monteverde and Teece 1982. Anderson and Gatignon 2005 di

6、scuss several studies wherein the TCE framework is used to explain outsourcing of marketing and distribution tasks so-called forward integration. Both asset specificity human capital and behavioral uncertainty seemed significant in explaining entry mode independent agent versus sales employees. With

7、 respect to the outsourcing of other service functions, such as human resources, IT, and accounting, only a few studies are available. For instance, Watjatrakul 2005 and Barthelemy and Geyer 2005 found asset specificity to be an important driver for the outsourcing of IT. Widener and Selto 1999 and

8、Spekl et al. 2007 investigated the outsourcing of the internal audit function and found support for both asset specificity and frequency. As far as we know, research on the outsourcing of accounting using a TCE framework is missing This limited number of studies on outsourcing of service functions i

9、s in contrast with the general trend we notice in practice, wherein companies tend to focus on core activities Quinn and Hilmer 1994. Similarly, Vandaele et al. 2007 derive from their review of the TCE literature that, despite the service-dominant shift in practice, limited attention has been given

10、to the specific characteristics of service functions and their impact upon the outsourcing decision. They conclude that, to govern the outsourcing decision of business services efficiently, more emphasis should be placed on behavioral uncertainty, human asset specificity, and trust. Also, Klein 2005

11、 concludes in his review paper that strategic management papers have included alternative theories of the firm, based on capabilities, power, and trust, and that these variables could potentially become important rivals to the transaction cost view. For instance, the impact of trust in service firms

12、 has been investigated by Brouthers and Brouthers 2003, and trust turned out to be significant for entry mode choices in service firms but not in manufacturing firms. Similarly, because of the people-intensive nature of the accounting tasks, we might expect that trust in the service provider will in

13、fluence the outsourcing decision. Therefore, trust will be included in this paper Furthermore, although small and medium-sized enterprises account for a significant portion of the economic activity, research on outsourcing within small and medium-sized enterprises SME is relatively scarce Brouthers

14、and Nakos 2004. Gilley et al. 2004 have conducted research on the outsourcing of manufacturing tasks by small firms and have called for a more general theory of outsourcing, which would require the consideration of a number of personal and organizational drivers. This trend is in line with the upper

15、 echelon theory, which suggests that outsourcing decisions in SMEs may be influenced significantly by the personal characteristics of the SME executive Hambrick and Mason 1984; Hitt and Tyler 1991; Wiersema and Bantel 1992. Therefore, for the purposes of this study, we will include personal characte

16、ristics, such as the age and educational background of the CEO Overall, the findings of this study demonstrate that the outsourcing of accounting in SMEs supports two major TCE predictions, i.e., for frequency and asset specificity. Frequency turns out to be significantly associated with the outsour

17、cing intensity of both routine and non-routine accounting tasks. Consistent with the TCE model, the lower the frequency of the accounting tasks, the more intensely they are outsourced. SMEs seem to be able to create economies of scale for the routine accounting tasks that are recurrent and sizeable,

18、 so that they are inclined to maintain such accounting tasks internally. Furthermore, we found evidence for the important role of asset specificity, in particular for the non-routine tasks. Non-routine accounting tasks require more expertise and judgment from the accountant. When knowledge regarding

19、 the specific context of the company is important in making those judgments, it becomes costly to transfer them to an external accountant; hence, companies organize these accounting tasks internally. This result is consistent with previous research on the outsourcing of other service functions where

20、 human asset specificity is involved, such as for internal audit Widener and Selto 1999; Spekl et al. 2007, distribution Brouthers and Brouters 2003, IT Watjatrakul 2005; Barthelemy and Geyer 2005, and R&D Monteverde and Teece 1982. Conversely, performing routine accounting tasks requires less judgm

21、ent, since these tasks are more standardized across firms. For such tasks, frequency turns out to be a more important factor than asset specificity when making a decision on outsourcing We found no support for a role of environmental or behavioral uncertainty.Outsourcing intensity of accounting task

22、s, whether routine or non-routine, is neither associated with the uncertainty of the workload of these accounting tasks nor with the extent to which it can be determined that the accountant has performed his/her job accurately. Similar to the outsourcing of internal audit activities Widener and Selt

23、o 1999, environmental uncertainty does not explain the outsourcing of accounting. Whether or not there is considerable variation in the workload, if the accounting services are not specific to the firm, they may be readily available from accounting firms, with little difference between spot and nego

24、tiated prices. If they are specific to the firm, tasks need to be done internally, irrespective of the fact that their scheduling is uncertain or not. Even though Vandaele et al. 2007 expect that behavioral uncertainty is an important factor in the outsourcing decision of service functions, the hypo

25、thesis regarding behavioral uncertainty was not supported by the data. The data show a rather low mean both for routine and non-routine tasks, suggesting that it is not difficult to determine whether the accountant accurately performed the accounting tasks. Many software tools are available to check

26、 the accuracy of routine accounting tasks input of data. In addition, legal offices e.g., the National Bank, collector of financial statements will alert management if the accountant has made a calculation error TCE has been criticized for being focused solely on opportunism as the basis for behavio

27、r, ignoring how relationships are more often based on cooperation and the personal relationships that exist between actors than on actual or perceived self-serving Muthusamy and White 2005; Ring and Van de Ven 1992; Zaheer and Venkatraman 1995. Therefore, this study also has incorporated the issue o

28、f trust. Considering the crucial role of the CEO as described by the upper echelon perspective, trust in the service provider may be a unique characteristic of SMEs compared to larger firms Hambrick and Mason 1984. This study clearly shows that the SMEs decision to outsource accounting tasks is not

29、only based on the characteristics of the transaction, but also is influenced by the interpersonal trust of the executive in the service provider Bachmann 2001 In addition, the crucial role of the personal characteristics of the CEO was further confirmed by the significant association between the edu

30、cational background of the CEO and outsourcing Park and Krishnan 2001. It was found that SMEs in which the CEO does not have an economic-oriented background tend to outsource their routine accounting tasks more intensely. Similarly, SMEs in which the CEO does not have a university degree are likely

31、to outsource their non-routine accounting tasks more intensely. Since performing accounting tasks requires a minimum of accounting expertise, such CEOs may lack these relevant skills and knowledge, so that they choose to outsource One may wish to extend this studys findings to other service function

32、s, such as human resources, IT, and legal support, wherein there are also both routine e.g., recruitment, help desk, warranties and non-routine tasks e.g., remuneration policy, patent, court case. Frequently performed routine activities are candidates for internalizing. Similarly, non-routine tasks,

33、 requiring knowledge regarding firm-specific assets, particularly if performed on a frequent basis, will be retained within the firm. Furthermore, for accounting tasks, many firms use a combination of outsourcing and internalizing, even for individual tasks such as period end accounting. One might w

34、onder whether this can be exclusively explained by transaction characteristics. The specific knowledge that is lacking in SMEs might be an alternative explanation Conner and Prahalad 1996. We hesitate to make predictions, but it seems that service functions that require specific knowledge are more h

35、eavily outsourced when the CEO does not possess the relevant knowledge from previous education. This conclusion is similar to the results obtained by Arnett and Jones 1994, where the IT knowledge of the CEO was related to IT outsourcing. Furthermore, this study treats accounting just as one support

36、function that SMEs might outsource, such as other staff functions, like human resources, IT, and legal support. Future research could investigate whether SMEs are outsourcing a bundle of services. From our data, we only know that half of the companies also outsource IT, but no relationship was found

37、 between the outsourcing of IT and accounting Second, we were not able to analyze data for each accounting task separately. Although our variables allowed us to compare routine and non-routine tasks, further research could disaggregate these further and collect data for TCE variables at the level of

38、 individual accounting tasks Future research efforts also might focus on additional interesting issues. First, the constructs we used were adapted to fit the accounting context of the study. In particular, for frequency, we added a volume element to our operation aviation. Preliminary interviews rev

39、ealed that the size of the accounting task length of the task as well as its periodicity the number of times an accounting task recurs during a year both are important components of the frequency of recurrent services. We suggest that future research should investigate both interpretations of freque

40、ncy in order to develop a better understanding of the frequency of service functions Alternatively, the role of trust may be rather unique for the accounting function. Before they outsource accounting tasks, SMEs must be certain that the external accountant is trustworthy and capable given the confi

41、dentiality of accounting data. Future research on SMEs could investigate whether trust is an important factor when outsourcing other functional areas, where confidentiality is of importance Finally, we support the call of Gilley and Rasheed 2000 to do more research on outsourcing intensity, because

42、it better captures the nuances of intermediate forms of outsourcing, such as partial outsourcing, whereby companies both outsource and internalize for the same function or even the same task. Again the specific knowledge of the service provider might be one explanation for such hybrid ways of organi

43、zing a service function. This also might explain why international comparisons, such as the study by Kakabadse 2002, come up with lower degrees of outsourcing, since these studies limit outsourcing to the situation in which all tasks within a specific service function are 100% outsourced译文用交易成本经济学解释

44、会计外包 资料来源:斯普林官网 作者:帕特里夏,格里特 外包可以被定义为一家公司分包给外部组织部分或全部功能的一种行为。由科斯(1937)提出的公司交易成本理论(TCE),已成为一个标准的框架来解释为什么有些企业选择由组织内部执行特定的职能,而其他公司决定将这一职能外包给其他公司。一个关于外包的实证研究证明绝大多数企业在外包时采用此TCE框架。一方面考虑企业采用自己员工生产,另一方面考虑交给外部组织完成,TCE试图解释公司是怎样处理所产生的相关交易成本的。克莱因(2005年)简单地阐明,交易程度的不同涉及特殊资产(资产特异性),对未来(环境的不确定性)的不确定性,其他外部组织活动的频率不确定(

45、行为的不确定性),以及特定交易发生的频率。 许多实证研究已经调查了生产业务外包(所谓的后向整合),并发现无论是单一行业研究还是纵向研究,资产的特殊性都是外包决策的重要推动力。Anderson和Gatignon(2005年)众多思索之后提出,TCE是用来解释营销和销售方面的外包。资产的特殊性和行为的不确定性似乎在解释模式(相对于销售人员独立代理人)中具有重要意义。关于外包等服务功能,如人力资源,IT和会计,只有少数的研究可供参考。例如,圣巴泰勒米和格耶(2005年)发现资产的特殊性是IT外包的一个重要推动力。Widener和Selto(1999年)研究了内部审计职能的外包,发现它得到资产专用性和

46、频率的双面支撑。据我们所知,对会计使用TCE框架进行外包研究较少。 对服务职能有限的研究,与我们注意到在实践中发现企业往往把重点放在核心活动是相反的。尽管在实践中存在服务为主的转变,有限的关注给予了那些有具体特点的服务职能的和它们对外包决策的影响,Vandaele等人的结论是,企业服务外包决策效率的管辖,应该更多地强调行为的不确定性。此外,克莱因(2005年)的结论是战略管理中的交易成本应包括公司,在能力,权力,和信任度的这些变数,因为它们是潜在可能成为的竞争对手的因素。例如,对信托服务公司的影响进行研究,原来是在服务企业(但不是在制造企业)信任度是关键因素。同样,由于财务外包人流密集的性质,

47、我们所期望的外包服务提供者的信任度占到重要比例。 此外,虽然小型和中小型企业是经济活动的重要部分,但是针对小型和中小型企业的外包进行的研究并不多。Gilley在2004年已对制造业务外包的小企业进行了一般的理论研究,需要建立在大量的个人和组织考虑之上。这一趋势是高层的理论,这表明中小企业外包决策可能会影响到中小企业行政部门(汉姆布瑞克和梅森1984;伊特和泰勒1991;威尔斯玛1992)的个人特征,例如总裁的年龄和教育背景。 总体而言,本研究的结果表明,中小企业会计外包TCE的预测中,相关因素即:交易的频率和资产的专用性。在常规和非常规的会计任务外包中,交易的频率与交易的程度十分相关。根据TC

48、E的模型,会计的工作频率降低了,外包的轻度就会增加。中小型企业由于日常会计任务的经常性似乎能够产生相当大的规模经济,使他们倾向于维持内部的会计任务。此外,我们发现,资产专用的重要作用,特别是对非例行的工作。非例行会计任务需要更多的会计专业知识和判断。当涉及该公司的具体情况,并做出重要判断时,将他们转移到一个外部会计师会之变得昂贵,因此,企业内部组织这些会计任务。这一结果与先前人力资产专用性,如涉及内部审计的研究结果一致,。相反,执行例行任务,需要较少的会计判断,因为这些任务更全面、更标准化。对于这样的任务,频率成为一个比资产特殊性更重要的,对业务外包产生影响的因素。 我们发现的环境或行为的不确

49、定性并没有得到理论支持。会计外包工作的强度方面发挥的作用,在会计人员已完成他/她的工作时,无论是常规或非常规业务,它们既不是随着这些会计任务的工作量的不确定性变化,也不是与它相关联的程度来确定。类似内部审计活动外包,环境的不确定性并不能解释会计外包。即使有很大差异的工作量,如果不是特定会计服务的公司,他们可能会随时与会计师事务所谈判,此时与“现货”价格相差并不大。不管他们是不确定或不安排,如果是具有特殊性的业务,那就需要内部来完成,。预期行为的不确定性在服务职能外包的决定是一个重要的因素,关于行为的不确定性的假设并没有得到数据的支持。这些数据显示了一个相当低的平均值(包括常规和非常规的任务),这表明确定是否正确执行的会计核算工作并不困难,。许多软件工具可用来检查工作的日常核算的准确性(数据输入)。此外,例如国家银行有财务报表的收集器,它将提醒管理如果会计师发生了计算错误。 TCE已被认定为仅仅是作为重点机会主义行为的基础,而忽略了如何在合作的基础上增加更多的机会。因此,本研究也已纳入了信任度的问题。考虑到所描述的CEO的高层,在服务供应商的信任度至关重要,可能是中小