IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijesbu/v14y2011i3p313-333.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Enhancing customer services and core competencies: outsourcing in Icelandic service SMEs

Author

Listed:
  • Ingi Runar Edvardsson
  • Gudmundur Kristjan Oskarsson
  • Sigrun Vesteinsdottir

Abstract

This paper reports on empirical work recently conducted on outsourcing among 381 service SMEs in Iceland. The study found that the majority of the firms outsourced some service activities, primarily in the local area, and that they did not have a strategic vision for outsourcing. The motives for outsourcing were more related to strategic aspects, such as a focus on core competencies, increased external expertise, and improved customer service, rather than lowering cost. The most common functions to be outsourced are administrative and peripheral tasks, as well as information technology, while very few outsource human resources or lay off staff. The study contributes to the emerging theory of outsourcing within the service sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Ingi Runar Edvardsson & Gudmundur Kristjan Oskarsson & Sigrun Vesteinsdottir, 2011. "Enhancing customer services and core competencies: outsourcing in Icelandic service SMEs," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 14(3), pages 313-333.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijesbu:v:14:y:2011:i:3:p:313-333
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=42756
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anan F. Srouji & Suzan R. Abed & Madher E. Hamdallah, 2019. "Banks performance and customers' satisfaction in relation to corporate social responsibility: mediating customer trust and spiritual leadership: what counts!," International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 19(3), pages 358-384.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijesbu:v:14:y:2011:i:3:p:313-333. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=74 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.