 Outsourcing as a mode of organizational learningAli Yakhlef
No 1101, Working Papers from Groupe ESC Pau, Research Department Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which outsourcing can be regarded as a mode of increasing organization learning through the internalization of new routines.The paper features six case studies of firms that have outsourced parts, or all of their information technology (IT) activities.When a firm outsources an IT activity (that has been performed in-house), it needs to develop an ability to specify to its supplier(s), and articulate its IT requirements in explicit terms. A firm’s effort to externalize knowledge that was internal to an external supplier implies that a great deal of relatively tacit knowledge has to be converted into explicit knowledge, so that suppliers are able to understand the firm’s business specificity. In this very process of externalizing knowledge and interacting with suppliers and other market players, the firm develops new rules, routines and procedures relating to how to manage the outsourced IT activity, which over time will be internalized. Keywords: Outsourcing; Learning organizations (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pau:wpaper:1101 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Papers from Groupe ESC Pau, Research Department Contact information at EDIRC. |
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