Record Details

Global sourcing and technical efficiency – a firm-level study on the ICT industry in Sweden

Research in Economics and Management

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Field Value
 
Title Global sourcing and technical efficiency – a firm-level study on the ICT industry in Sweden
 
Creator Andersson, Martin
Stone, Trudy-Ann
 
Description We analyse the relationship between international sourcing, measured as imports of intermediate inputs, and the technical efficiency of firms in the information and communications technologies (ICT) manufacturing industry in Sweden. Using stochastic frontier analysis, we provide evidence that global sourcing improves firms’ capabilities to combine and re-combine inputs in productive ways, thereby increasing technical efficiency. We find a robust relationship between technical efficiency and international outsourcing. First, we find that firms that are deeply integrated into global sourcing networks are closer to their own production frontier. Second, firms that are engaged in international sourcing are also closer to the industry efficiency frontier. These findings are consistent with the argument that international sourcing stimulates firms’ capabilities by enabling them to identify and adopt higher quality inputs or more efficient production and management practices. These findings also suggest that the variety and extent of firms’ global sourcing networks constitute an important source of differences in efficiency levels among firms the ICT manufacturing industry.
 
Publisher VGTU Press Technika
 
Date 2017-10-27
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier https://journals.vgtu.lt/index.php/JBEM/article/view/1241
10.3846/16111699.2017.1356367
 
Source Journal of Business Economics and Management; Vol 18 No 5 (2017); 877–896
2029-4433
1611-1699
 
Language eng
 
Relation https://journals.vgtu.lt/index.php/JBEM/article/view/1241/975