Outsourcing and Supply Chain Management

When firms hand off functions like software development, logistics, or manufacturing to outside partners—whether across town or across continents—they set off a chain of decisions about trust, control, and information flow that can make or break the arrangement. Researchers in this space examine how companies choose vendors, structure contracts, share knowledge across organizational boundaries, and coordinate global networks of suppliers and third-party logistics providers, often drawing on transaction cost economics to explain why some activities get outsourced while others stay in-house. The stakes are high: getting these decisions wrong can expose a firm to hidden costs, capability erosion, or supply chain disruptions that ripple outward for months. Active work in the area probes how digital platforms and real-time data-sharing reshape partnership quality, and whether offshore arrangements that looked efficient in stable conditions hold up under geopolitical stress or demand volatility.

Works

70,903

Total citations

603,693

Keywords

OutsourcingOffshoringInformation TechnologyThird-Party LogisticsGlobal SourcingSupply Chain Management