Niet alleen een kwestie van besparen: De invloed van organisatie-inbedding op de uitbesteding van organisatieonderdelen

Outsourcing of organizational units is commonly explained as a result of an economic consideration based on maximizing profits. This article examines this claim by testing whether outsourcing declines when transaction costs are made aimed at developing firm-specific skills. Or alternatively if the decline of outsourcing is the result of the organizational embeddeness of organizational units. This article puts response of 17.958 companies to use, which are located in 28 different countries. Whether organizational embeddeness mediates the relation between firm-specific skills and outsourcing of organizational units is tested trough three separate Hayes-tests. Partially in contrast with expectations organizational embeddeness appeared to effect the operational organizational units ‘production’ differently than the staff organizational units ‘marketing’ and ‘research and development’. Whereas outsourcing declined in both cases of marketing, research and development because of organizational embeddeness. Outsourcing of production mostly declined as result of firm-specific skills. As it appears outsourcing is more strongly effect by economic considerations in case of operational organizational units. Whereas staff organizational units are more effectively ‘shielded’ form outsourcing by social ties. Some notions about possible explanations and future research are given at the end of this article.