IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pit/wpaper/353.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Much to Make and How Much to Buy: Explaining Plural Sourcing Strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Sourav Bhattacharya

Abstract

While many theories of the firm seek to explain when firms make rather than buy, in practice firms often make and buy the same input- they engage in plural sourcing. We argue that explaining the mix of external procurement and internal sourcing for the same input requires a consideration of complementarities across and constraints within modes of procurement. We create analytical foundations for making empirical predictions about when plural sourcing is likely to be optimal and why the optimal mix of internal and external sourcing may vary across situations. Our framework also proves useful for assessing the possible estimation biases in transaction level make-or-buy studies arising from ignoring complementarities and constraints.

Suggested Citation

  • Sourav Bhattacharya, 2008. "How Much to Make and How Much to Buy: Explaining Plural Sourcing Strategies," Working Paper 353, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised May 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:pit:wpaper:353
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ewi-ssl.pitt.edu/econ/files/faculty/wp/120207_wp_BhattacharyaSourav_MakeorBuy.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yoram Barzel, 1997. "Measurement Cost and the Organization of Markets," Chapters, in: Svetozar Pejovich (ed.), The Economic Foundations of Property Rights, chapter 13, pages 171-192, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Ranjay Gulati & Paul R. Lawrence & Phanish Puranam, 2005. "Adaptation in vertical relationships: beyond incentive conflict," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5), pages 415-440, May.
    3. Kirk Monteverde & David J. Teece, 1982. "Supplier Switching Costs and Vertical Integration in the Automobile Industry," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(1), pages 206-213, Spring.
    4. Dutta, Shantanu, et al, 1995. "Understanding Dual Distribution: The Case of Reps and House Accounts," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 189-204, April.
    5. Francine Lafontaine & Margaret E. Slade, 1997. "Retail Contracting: Theory and Practice," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 1-25, March.
    6. George Baker, 2002. "Distortion and Risk in Optimal Incentive Contracts," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 728-751.
    7. Demsetz, Harold, 1988. "The Theory of the Firm Revisited," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 141-161, Spring.
    8. Helper, Susan & MacDuffie, John Paul & Sabel, Charles, 2000. "Pragmatic Collaborations: Advancing Knowledge While Controlling Opportunism," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 9(3), pages 443-487, September.
    9. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    10. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1995. "Complementarities and fit strategy, structure, and organizational change in manufacturing," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 179-208, April.
    11. Roberto A. Weber & Colin F. Camerer, 2003. "Cultural Conflict and Merger Failure: An Experimental Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 400-415, April.
    12. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1996. "What Firms Do? Coordination, Identity, and Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 7(5), pages 502-518, October.
    13. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "The Economics of Modern Manufacturing: Technology, Strategy, and Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 511-528, June.
    14. Nicolaj Siggelkow, 2002. "Misperceiving Interactions Among Complements and Substitutes: Organizational Consequences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(7), pages 900-916, July.
    15. Roberto Weber & Colin Camerer & Yuval Rottenstreich & Marc Knez, 2001. "The Illusion of Leadership: Misattribution of Cause in Coordination Games," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(5), pages 582-598, October.
    16. Kathryn Rudie Harrigan, 1986. "Matching vertical integration strategies to competitive conditions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(6), pages 535-555, November.
    17. Nile W. Hatch & Jeffrey H. Dyer, 2004. "Human capital and learning as a source of sustainable competitive advantage," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(12), pages 1155-1178, December.
    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. Beladi, Hamid & Mukherjee, Arijit, 2012. "Market structure and strategic bi-sourcing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 210-219.

    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. Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam, 2008. "Integration Through Incentives Within Differentiated Organizations," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(6), pages 860-875, December.
    2. Nicholas S. Argyres & Todd R. Zenger, 2012. "Capabilities, Transaction Costs, and Firm Boundaries," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(6), pages 1643-1657, December.
    3. Ranjay Gulati & Phanish Puranam, 2009. "Renewal Through Reorganization: The Value of Inconsistencies Between Formal and Informal Organization," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(2), pages 422-440, April.
    4. Albert Banal‐Estañol & Jo Seldeslachts, 2011. "Merger Failures," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 589-624, June.
    5. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    6. Phanish Puranam & Harbir Singh & Saikat Chaudhuri, 2009. "Integrating Acquired Capabilities: When Structural Integration Is (Un)necessary," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(2), pages 313-328, April.
    7. Thomas Mellewigt & Glenn Hoetker & Martina Lütkewitte, 2018. "Avoiding High Opportunism Is Easy, Achieving Low Opportunism Is Not: A QCA Study on Curbing Opportunism in Buyer–Supplier Relationships," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(6), pages 1208-1208, December.
    8. Kannan Srikanth & Phanish Puranam, 2014. "The Firm as a Coordination System: Evidence from Software Services Offshoring," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(4), pages 1253-1271, August.
    9. George Chondrakis & Mari Sako, 2020. "When suppliers shift my boundaries: Supplier employee mobility and its impact on buyer firms' sourcing strategy," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(9), pages 1682-1711, September.
    10. Miranda, Bruno & Chaddad, Fabio, 2016. "Transaction Costs, Capabilities, and Grape Procurement Strategies in U.S. Emerging Wine Regions," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235363, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    11. Mahka Moeen & Deepak Somaya & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2013. "Supply Portfolio Concentration in Outsourced Knowledge-Based Services," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(1), pages 262-279, February.
    12. Yanhui Wu, 2015. "Organizational Structure and Product Choice in Knowledge-Intensive Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(8), pages 1830-1848, August.
    13. Moeen, Mahka & Somaya, Deepak & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2011. "Supply Portfolio Concentration in Outsourced Knowledge-Based Services," Working Papers 11-0106, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    14. Nina Hampl, 2020. "Drivers of and barriers to partner switch in interfirm alliances: a conceptual model," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(4), pages 563-589, May.
    15. Nicholas S. Argyres, 1999. "The Impact of Information Technology on Coordination: Evidence from the B-2 “Stealth” Bomber," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 162-180, April.
    16. Bitsch, Linda & Hanf, Jon H., 2022. "The perfect match: interpersonal relationships and their impact on chain management," International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, International Food and Agribusiness Management Association, vol. 25(3), March.
    17. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    18. Furlan, Andrea & Dal Pont, Giorgia & Vinelli, Andrea, 2011. "On the complementarity between internal and external just-in-time bundles to build and sustain high performance manufacturing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 489-495, October.
    19. Kingshuk K. Sinha & Andrew H. Van de Ven, 2005. "Designing Work Within and Between Organizations," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(4), pages 389-408, August.
    20. Luis Garicano & Luis Rayo, 2016. "Why Organizations Fail: Models and Cases," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 137-192, March.

    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:pit:wpaper:353. 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: Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/depghus.html .

    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.