The Impact of Budget Constraints on Flexible vs. Dedicated Technology Choice
研究了多产品企业在需求不确定且面临资本预算和运营预算约束时，如何在柔性技术与专用技术之间做出最优选择，发现资本预算收紧时专用技术更优，而财务灵活性降低时柔性技术更优。
This paper studies the flexible versus dedicated technology choice and capacity investment decisions of a multiproduct firm under demand uncertainty in the presence of budget constraints. The firm operates under a capital budget for financing the capacity investment, and an operating budget, which is uncertain in the capacity investment stage, for financing the production. We investigate how the tightening of the capital budget and a lower financial flexibility in the production stage (the likelihood of having a sufficient operating budget) shape the optimal technology choice. We find that the dominant regime is one where dedicated technology should be adopted for a larger investment cost range, and thus, is the best response to the tighter capital budget, whereas flexible technology is the best response to lower financial flexibility. We identify the key roles that the capacity intensity (the ratio of unit capacity cost to total unit capacity and production cost) of each technology and the pooling value of operating budget with dedicated technology, which brings this technology closer to flexible technology in terms of the resource network’s flexibility, play in a budget-constrained environment. Managerially, our results underline that in the presence of financial constraints, firms should manage technology adoption together with plant location, which shapes capacity intensity, or product portfolio, which shapes financial flexibility. This paper was accepted by Serguei Netessine, operations management.