Outsourcing

The trend to source out internal functions to foreign corporations and locations has experienced strong growth over the past decades and has accompanied the expansion of global trade and investment. Outsourcing has led to a new pattern in the international division of labor between the industrialized and the developing nations. It has largely contributed to the economic success of emerging countries like India, Taiwan, and China. Outsourcing is influenced by a bundle of different macroeconomic and business-related factors. After decades of expansion, the trend to source out value-added goods and services, however, seems to have peaked.