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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 outsourcing intensity of both routine and non-routine accounting tasks. Consistent with the TCE model, the lower the frequency of the accounting tasks,
