IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bol/bodewp/wp1009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Vertical flexibility, outsourcing and the financial choices of the firm

Author

Listed:
  • M. Moretto
  • G. Rossini

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the extent of vertical flexibility and the underlying financial choices of a firm. By vertical flexibility we mean the opportunity to outsource a necessary input and to reverse the choice as input market conditions dictate. A firm simultaneously selects the portion of equity and debt and its vertical setting. Debt is provided by a lender that requires the payment of a fixed coupon over time and, as a collateral, an option to buy out the firm in certain circumstances. Debt leads to the same level of flexibility acquired by an unlevered firm. However, investment to set up a flexible technology occurs earlier. An alternative to debt is the involvement of venture capital for the production of the input. We explore this second avenue finding that the extent of outsourcing adopted is lower than for the unlevered firm, but the firm invests earlier.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Moretto & G. Rossini, 2015. "Vertical flexibility, outsourcing and the financial choices of the firm," Working Papers wp1009, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://amsacta.unibo.it/4278/1/WP1009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alvarez, Luis H.R. & Stenbacka, Rune, 2007. "Partial outsourcing: A real options perspective," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 91-102, February.
    2. Billette de Villemeur, Etienne & Ruble, Richard & Versaevel, Bruno, 2014. "Investment timing and vertical relationships," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 110-123.
    3. Banerjee, Shantanu & Güçbilmez, Ufuk & Pawlina, Grzegorz, 2014. "Optimal exercise of jointly held real options: A Nash bargaining approach with value diversion," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 239(2), pages 565-578.
    4. S. Katie Moon & Gordon M. Phillips, 2014. "Outside Purchase Contracts, Human Capital and Firm Capital Structure," NBER Working Papers 20579, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    6. Eaton, B Curtis & Schmitt, Nicolas, 1994. "Flexible Manufacturing and Market Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 875-888, September.
    7. Oz Shy & Rune Stenbacka, 2005. "Partial outsourcing, monitoring cost, and market structure," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(4), pages 1173-1190, November.
    8. Harrison, J. Michael & Kreps, David M., 1979. "Martingales and arbitrage in multiperiod securities markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 381-408, June.
    9. Duncan Simester & Marc Knez, 2002. "Direct and Indirect Bargaining Costs and the Scope of the Firm," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(2), pages 283-304, April.
    10. Maria Alipranti & Chrysovalantou Miliou & Emmanuel Petrakis, 2014. "On Vertical Relations and Technology Adoption Timing," Working Papers 1502, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    11. Peter G. Klein, 2005. "The Make-or-Buy Decision: Lessons from Empirical Studies," Springer Books, in: Claude Menard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, chapter 17, pages 435-464, Springer.
    12. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    13. Mauer, David C. & Sarkar, Sudipto, 2005. "Real options, agency conflicts, and optimal capital structure," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 1405-1428, June.
    14. Benaroch, Michel & Webster, Scott & Kazaz, Burak, 2012. "Impact of sourcing flexibility on the outsourcing of services under demand uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 219(2), pages 272-283.
    15. Wang, Li Ming & Liu, Li Wen & Wang, Yong Jie, 2007. "Capacity decisions and supply price games under flexibility of backward integration," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(1-2), pages 85-96, October.
    16. Williamson, Oliver E, 1971. "The Vertical Integration of Production: Market Failure Considerations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 112-123, May.
    17. Cox, John C. & Ross, Stephen A., 1976. "The valuation of options for alternative stochastic processes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1-2), pages 145-166.
    18. Triantis, Alexander J & Hodder, James E, 1990. "Valuing Flexibility as a Complex Option," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(2), pages 549-565, June.
    19. Sriram Dasu & Lode Li, 1997. "Optimal Operating Policies in the Presence of Exchange Rate Variability," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(5), pages 705-722, May.
    20. Constantinides, George M, 1978. "Market Risk Adjustment in Project Valuation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 33(2), pages 603-616, May.
    21. Panos Kouvelis & Kostas Axarloglou & Vikas Sinha, 2001. "Exchange Rates and the Choice of Ownership Structure of Production Facilities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(8), pages 1063-1080, August.
    22. Jean Tirole, 2006. "The Theory of Corporate Finance," Post-Print hal-00173191, HAL.
    23. Bruce Kogut & Nalin Kulatilaka, 1994. "Operating Flexibility, Global Manufacturing, and the Option Value of a Multinational Network," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(1), pages 123-139, January.
    24. Michael D. Whinston, 2003. "On the Transaction Cost Determinants of Vertical Integration," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 1-23, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Di Corato, Luca & Moretto, Michele & Rossini, Gianpaolo, 2017. "Financing flexibility: The case of outsourcing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 35-65.
    2. Di Corato, Luca & Moretto, Michele, 2011. "Investing in biogas: Timing, technological choice and the value of flexibility from input mix," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1186-1193.
    3. Michele Moretto & Gianpaolo Rossini, 2008. "Vertical Integration and Operational Flexibility," Working Papers 2008.37, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    4. Dimitrios Zormpas, 2017. "How vertical relationships and external funding affect investment efficiency and timing?," 2017 Papers pzo81, Job Market Papers.
    5. Antelo, Manel & Bru, Lluis, 2010. "Outsourcing or restructuring: The dynamic choice," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 1-7, January.
    6. Benaroch, Michel & Webster, Scott & Kazaz, Burak, 2012. "Impact of sourcing flexibility on the outsourcing of services under demand uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 219(2), pages 272-283.
    7. Jiao Wang & Lima Zhao & Arnd Huchzermeier, 2021. "Operations‐Finance Interface in Risk Management: Research Evolution and Opportunities," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(2), pages 355-389, February.
    8. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    9. Nagesh N. Murthy & Milind Shrikhande & Ajay Subramanian, 2007. "Switching costs, dynamic uncertainty, and buyer–seller relationships," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(8), pages 859-873, December.
    10. Arkadiy V. Sakhartov, 2018. "Stock market undervaluation of resource redeployability," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 1059-1082, April.
    11. Bardia Kamrad & Keith Ord, 2006. "Market risk and process uncertainty in production operations," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(7), pages 627-640, October.
    12. Robert A. Jarrow, 1999. "In Honor of the Nobel Laureates Robert C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes: A Partial Differential Equation That Changed the World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 229-248, Fall.
    13. Elmar Lukas & Andreas Welling, 2012. "vestment Timing and Eco(nomic)-Efficiency of Climate-Friendly Investments in Supply Chains," FEMM Working Papers 120026, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    14. Lukas, Elmar & Thiergart, Sascha, 2019. "The interaction of debt financing, cash grants and the optimal investment policy under uncertainty," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 276(1), pages 284-299.
    15. Arkadiy V. Sakhartov & Timothy B. Folta, 2014. "Resource relatedness, redeployability, and firm value," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(12), pages 1781-1797, December.
    16. Tailan Chi & Jing Li & Lenos G Trigeorgis & Andrianos E Tsekrekos, 2019. "Real options theory in international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 50(4), pages 525-553, June.
    17. Gao, Yongling & Driouchi, Tarik, 2018. "Accounting for ambiguity and trust in partial outsourcing: A behavioral real options perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 93-104.
    18. Arkadiy V. Sakhartov & Timothy B. Folta, 2015. "Getting beyond relatedness as a driver of corporate value," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(13), pages 1939-1959, December.
    19. Triantis, Alexander J & Triantis, George G, 1998. "Timing Problems in Contract Breach Decisions," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 163-207, April.
    20. Lukas, Elmar & Welling, Andreas, 2014. "Timing and eco(nomic) efficiency of climate-friendly investments in supply chains," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 448-457.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • L24 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Contracting Out; Joint Ventures

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1009. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebolit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.