ABSTRACT
The Harvard Business Review lists outsourcing as one of the most important new management ideas of the 20th century (Sibbet 1997). Today companies of all kinds use outsourcing as a tool to focus and perfect company processes in a never-ending endeavor to improve the products or services they provide to customers. Indeed, outsourcing has changed the way in which firms compete in such diverse industries as automobiles, aerospace, telecommunications, computers, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, healthcare, financial services, energy systems, and software (Quinn 2000; Dahan and Hauser 2002; Carson 2007). In this process, the meaning and scope of outsourcing constantly develop as the strategic complexity of the elements considered for outsourcing grows.
