Return to search

Outsourcing and Sustained Competitive Advantage : How do Swedish technical production firms in a competitive environment and high technical uncertainty find the right balance between outsourcing and in-house development that enhances their sustainable competitive advantage when they outsource their Research & Development externally?

The purpose of this thesis is to find out when Research and Development (R&D) becomes a suitable attribute for a production company to outsource. In an environment where innovations are following up quickly up and uncertainty about the type of innovation and customer is a fact, external sourcing can bring a competitive advantage. The empirical evidence shows that when R&D is outsourced the total cost does not increase at a due cause of outsourcing in this given study. Although a lot of theory explains outsourcing as a cost increasing factor, the internal experience and frequent relation between the technical production company Beta and its R&D vendor company Alfa can decrease costs considerably due to lower communication and governance costs. This was not explicitly expressed in related theory and is therefore a contribution to the academia as well as for managers who seek to find an answer to the question of when to outsource and when not to outsource.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hh-5299
Date January 2010
CreatorsDunert, Sofie, Westerling, Patrik
PublisherHögskolan i Halmstad, Sektionen för ekonomi och teknik (SET), Högskolan i Halmstad, Sektionen för ekonomi och teknik (SET)
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Page generated in 0.0019 seconds