Strategic Maneuvers for Outsourcing Flexibility: An Empirical Assessment
基于Tan和Sia的框架，通过多理论视角锚定战略操作，对新加坡171个外包项目进行问卷调查，验证了外包灵活性的四个维度及其与不同战略操作的关系，并发现IT外包与业务流程外包中灵活性维度的作用强度不同。
ABSTRACT Tan and Sia (2006) conceptualize outsourcing flexibility within a set of four dimensions: robustness, modifiability, new capability, and ease of exit, and propose a portfolio of preemptive, protective, exploitive, and corrective maneuvers to manage flexibility in outsourcing. In this article, we build upon their proposed framework by anchoring the strategic maneuvers through a multitheoretic lens and empirically validate the research propositions. A survey of 171 outsourcing projects in Singapore was conducted. The findings bear evidence that the four proposed dimensions of outsourcing flexibility are conceptually distinct and that different strategic maneuvers contribute differently to the various flexibility dimensions. The empirical findings also affirm the importance of structuring flexibility for outsourcing success, with some flexibility dimensions manifesting different intensity in enabling outsourcing success for IT outsourcing versus business process outsourcing. We conclude by proposing a more holistic approach for effective flexibility management in outsourcing and highlighting research gaps that may need deeper theorizing and empirical extension.