Reframing the Outsourcing Process

Multiple functions and stakeholders from the buyer and the supplier are involved and affected, either directly or indirectly, by the outsourcing process and the way it is managed. These can all assign different meaning to the evaluations and decisions made during the process, which in turn may strongly influence its success. To avoid distrust and suboptimal solutions, managers need to take into consideration different stakeholders’ opinions when making key outsourcing decisions. However, capturing these opinions is cumbersome, and may slow down the outsourcing process significantly. This paper proposes a segmentation approach to rationalize the inclusion of different stakeholders’ opinions in outsourcing decision-making. More specifically, Bolman and Deal’s four leadership frames are used to consider multiple opinions regarding a production transfer between a Norwegian manufacturer of advanced hydro-acoustic sensor systems and one of its strategic suppliers. The paper shows how a multi-frame model may bring new understanding to key outsourcing decisions, and ensure that multiple stakeholders’ opinions are considered throughout the process.