IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecolab/v11y2000i1p136-168.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When Performance Fails to Meet Expectations: Managers' Objectives for Outsourcing

Author

Listed:
  • Suzanne Young
  • Johanna Macneil

Abstract

Managers may implement outsourcing for one or more of a range of reasons: to improve strategic focus, to achieve numerical or functional flexibility, to reduce costs or risk, to change their own roles, to change organisational culture or workplace power structure, and to intensify work effort. However, often there are associated costs, either unanticipated or unquantified. This paper provides evidence from two food processing companies to address the following questions: (1) Why do managers pursue outsourcing? and (2) Have managers anticipated and quantified the potential costs as well as the benefits of outsourcing? We conclude that while it seems clear that managers do begin with clear objectives for outsourcing and anticipate that benefits will flow, sometimes these objectives are not met, unexpected costs are incurred, or objectives change as new information is available or situations change. In other cases managers have been unable to objectively substantiate the outsourcing decision.

Suggested Citation

  • Suzanne Young & Johanna Macneil, 2000. "When Performance Fails to Meet Expectations: Managers' Objectives for Outsourcing," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 11(1), pages 136-168, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:11:y:2000:i:1:p:136-168
    DOI: 10.1177/103530460001100106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/103530460001100106
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/103530460001100106?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Domberger, S & Meadowcroft, S & Thompson, D, 1987. "The impact of competitive tendering on the costs of hospital domestic services," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 8(4), pages 39-54, November.
    2. John Cubbin & Simon Domberger & Shirley Meadowcroft, 1987. "Competitive tendering and refuse collection: identifying the sources of efficiency gains," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 8(3), pages 49-58, August.
    3. Simon Domberger, 1994. "Public Sector Contracting: Does It Work?," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 27(3), pages 91-96, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Almas Heshmati, 2003. "Productivity Growth, Efficiency and Outsourcing in Manufacturing and Service Industries," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 79-112, February.
    2. Suzanne Young, 2002. "Outsourcing and Downsizing: Processes of Workplace Change in Public Health," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 13(2), pages 244-269, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul H. Jensen & Robin E. Stonecash, 2004. "The Efficiency of Public Sector Outsourcing Contracts: A Literature Review," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n29, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    2. Paul H. Jensen & Robin E. Stonecash, 2005. "Incentives and the Efficiency of Public Sector‐outsourcing Contracts," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(5), pages 767-787, December.
    3. David Parker, 1990. "The 1988 Local Government Act and Compulsory Competitive Tendering," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 27(5), pages 653-667, October.
    4. Jayne Elizabeth Bisman, 2008. "Australian Public-Sector Outsourcing in the ‘Golden Era’: Cost Savings Evidence or Anecdote?," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 18(2), pages 108-122, June.
    5. Norimichi Matsueda & Jun’Ichi Miki, 2017. "Contracting-Out Of Household Waste Collection Services In Japan," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 65(02), pages 443-455, May.
    6. Bozec, Richard, 2004. "L’analyse comparative de la performance entre les entreprises publiques et les entreprises privées : le problème de mesure et son impact sur les résultats," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 80(4), pages 619-654, Décembre.
    7. Germa Bel & Anton Costas, 2006. "Do Public Sector Reforms Get Rusty? Local Privatization in Spain," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24.
    8. Amaral, Miguel & Saussier, Stéphane & Yvrande-Billon, Anne, 2009. "Auction procedures and competition in public services: The case of urban public transport in France and London," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 166-175, June.
    9. Yarmukhamedov, Sherzod & Smith, Andrew S.J. & Thiebaud, Jean-Christophe, 2020. "Competitive tendering, ownership and cost efficiency in road maintenance services in Sweden: A panel data analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 194-204.
    10. Alena Podaneva & Pierre Picard, 2023. "Facility Management Services in UK Hospitals: in-house or outsourcing," DEM Discussion Paper Series 23-15, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    11. Neal Ryan & Craig Furneaux & Anthony Pink & Kerry Brown, 2005. "Public Sector Contracting: An Australian Study of Changing Work Conditions," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 16(4), pages 438-457.
    12. Andersson, Fredrik & Jordahl, Henrik, 2011. "Outsourcing Public Services: Ownership, Competition, Quality and Contracting," Working Paper Series 874, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    13. Stefan Szymanski, 1996. "The impact of compulsory competitive tendering on refuse collection services," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 1-19, August.
    14. AndréS GóMez-Lobo & Stefan Szymanski, 2001. "A Law of Large Numbers: Bidding and Compulsory Competitive Tendering for Refuse Collection Contracts," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 18(1), pages 105-113, February.
    15. Bivand, Roger & Szymanski, Stefan, 2000. "Modelling the spatial impact of the introduction of Compulsory Competitive Tendering," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 203-219, March.
    16. Kennedy, David, 1995. "London bus tendering: a welfare balance," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 243-249, October.
    17. Smith, Andrew S.J. & Wheat, Phill E. & Nash, Chris A., 2010. "Exploring the effects of passenger rail franchising in Britain: Evidence from the first two rounds of franchising (1997-2008)," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 72-79.
    18. Keith A. Bender & Robert Elliott, 1999. "Relative Earnings in the UK Public Sector: The Impact of Pay Reform on Pay Structure," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Robert Elliott & Claudio Lucifora & Dominique Meurs (ed.), Public Sector Pay Determination in the European Union, chapter 8, pages 285-339, Palgrave Macmillan.
    19. Mehta, Shekhar & Giertz, J. Fred, 1996. "Measuring the Performance of the Property Tax Assessment Process," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(1), pages 73-85, March.
    20. Henry Ohlsson, 2003. "Ownership and Production Costs: Choosing between Public Production and Contracting-Out in the Case of Swedish Refuse Collection," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 24(4), pages 451-476, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sae:ecolab:v:11:y:2000:i:1:p:136-168. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.