Shrinking Core, Expanding Periphery: The Relational Architecture of High-Performing Organizations
研究了高绩效企业如何通过收缩核心业务、扩展外围关系，与客户、供应商、联盟伙伴和内部业务单元加强合作，从而提升业绩。
This article examines how firms find pathways to high performance with a simultaneous focus on their top and bottom lines by aggressively developing and managing their relationships with key stakeholders. Top-performing firms are shrinking their core while at once expanding their periphery. At the same time that they are contracting their organizational centers and outsourcing increasing portions of their activities, these firms are extending their organizational borders by trying to provide customers with greater sets of products and services. As companies refocus, they have become increasingly dependent on reinforcing mutually beneficial ties to four sets of critical stakeholders: customers, suppliers, alliance partners, and intra-organizational business units. In each of these relationship dimensions, successful firms work their way up a ladder in which they intensify their collaborative efforts with that particular constituent. This phenomenon, which is evident across an array of industries, is one of the hallmarks of a new operating model—the relationship-centered organization.