Interface complexity and relative power in an outsourcing context
Författare
Summary, in English
Outsourcing has during the past years evolved into a natural part of companies’ strategy to adapt to an increasingly demanding business environment. The decisions are often made for two central reasons, either to focus on core-competence or achieving cost-reductions. Outsourcing has brought companies both positive and negative effects through the two mentioned reasons, but there is a need for a more balanced view on the concept of outsourcing. With the use of complexity theory, focusing on the theory of interdependency of parts in a system, two cases are analyzed along with a case from literature. The interdependency is divided up into two relevant factors, relative power and interface complexity, which describe the relation between two companies in an outsourcing situation. A model is proposed, showing how the cases relate to the factors of relative power and interface complexity, revealing if an outsourcing decision is suitable for a certain situation or if caution is to be taken before the decision is made.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2002
Språk
Engelska
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Proceedings of the ISL conference
Fulltext
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Dokumenttyp
Konferensbidrag
Ämne
- Other Mechanical Engineering
Nyckelord
- complexity theory
- outsourcing
- interdependence
- power
- packaging logistics
Conference name
International Symposium fo Logistics (ISL), 2002
Conference date
2002-07-14 - 2002-07-16
Conference place
Melbourne;, Australia
Status
Published