What follows after the decision to offshore production

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider research that has been conducted on the offshoring of manufacturing activities, and more specifically to synthesize results regarding the question of how firms integrate and govern geographically dispersed production activities. Design/methodology/approach – A set of 100 carefully selected articles on offshoring and offshore outsourcing of production published in international peer-reviewed journals during the past 15 years are systematically analyzed. The focus is on 34 articles that touch on issues of integration and governance of dispersed production facilities. Findings – Offshoring and offshore outsourcing of production is a cross-cutting subject of research. Most research is recent and largely conceptual. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the decision to offshore is often followed by the need to build more integrated operations. Research limitations/implications – One of the major constraining factors of this research, like many literature revi...