Page 59 - 臺大管理論叢第33卷第1期

NTU Management Review Vol. 33 No. 1 Apr. 2023

2.4.1 Disaggregation and Task Specificity
As outsourcing implies partitioning activities based on knowledge (Takeishi, 2002),
outsourcing innovation entails disaggregation insofar as firms partition, disaggregate,
and allocate their activities across organizations (Contractor et al., 2010). Specifically,

disaggregation means that a firm separates a certain innovation activity into many finer
portions and tasks. Each task might perform independently and separately while each
with specific knowledge contributes to the same innovation activity. For instance, a R&D

activity can be separated into different portions and tasks ranging from blue-sky research
to basic research, to applied research, to development, and to supportive work (Andersson
and Pedersen, 2010). In addition, disaggregation also means that a firm identifies specific
tasks which can be offshored (Jensen et al., 2013).
Take the pharmaceutical industry as an example. Some pharmaceutical companies

from developed countries disaggregate and outsource their R&D tasks, including the
analysis of chemical components and the process of component screening, to developing
countries while they keep the genetics research and new drug development near their

headquarters (Contractor et al., 2011). Some pharmaceutical companies also distribute
the preparation of test batches and clinical testing tasks for the same new drug across a
number of countries and contract providers (Kapler and Puhala, 2011). Since these specific
tasks are assigned and distributed to each contract provider working separately from the
others without communication, each task thus becomes specific to the vendor and can be

termed as task specificity.
Following the above discussions, we propose that task specificity offers a mechanism
for outsourcing firms to capture the value from contract providers in the developing

countries with weak IPR protection. Firstly, task specificity enables firms to allocate
at least some specific, safe, and discrete portions of their innovation activities across
countries and to increase the productivity by taking advantage of the foreign knowledge
embedded in the human capital of offshore contract providers (Kedia and Mukherjee,
2009). Secondly, task specificity enables firms to acquire tacit inputs from contractor

providers when innovation activities involve high levels of tacit knowledge, creativity,
and intangible assets (Buckley, Craig, and Mudambi, 2019; Kapler and Puhala, 2011).
Thirdly, task specificity enables firms to utilize the global configuration of tacit knowledge

and specific capabilities that resides in different organizations and companies spread

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