The partnering process in cross-border outsourcing: Decision-making of small technology oriented enterprises in Finland

Abstract

The objective of this thesis was to study how small technology oriented Finnish enterprises make their offshore outsourcing decisions and what are the typical phases of the process. In this field, there is basically no research done in the academia so far. In order to gain an understanding about the topic, qualitative method was chosen and interviews were done with five different companies using key informant method. A case within approach was used to describe the cases and later cross-case analysis was conducted to find out patterns from the data. The biggest motivation for offshore outsourcing is lower overall costs and the target countries are emerging economies from Eastern Europe. According to the data and the analysis, small enterprises’ decision processes are not predetermined and the companies do not use any tools in evaluating the options. Instead, decisions are reached between a small group of top managers, with the CEO often being the final decision maker.