Séminaire GREDEG : Frederic WARZYNSKI (Aarhus University)

Title: Firm Selection and Organizational Choice: Complex Patterns of Global Sourcing
Authors: Frederic Warzynski and Valerie Smeets, Aarhus University, Aarhus Business School

Abstract: Over the last decades, companies have increasingly taken advantage of new offshoring possibilities, facilitated by the information and communication technology (ICT) revolution and access to large pools of cheap labor thanks to trade liberalization and major political changes. They have created complex global value chains, where the production process is fragmented in different tasks, and these various tasks are performed in several countries. As a consequence, the nature of economic activities performed in the home country of multinational firms has been dramatically affected. A significant share of home resources is used to serve the global network, a concept often referred to as headquarter services. Yet, we are still lacking recent empirical metrics in order to evaluate this shift in activities. In this paper, we take advantage of three large scale surveys of Danish firms run by Statistics Denmark (more than 4,000 companies were surveyed in each wave) about their offshoring decisions from 2001 to 2016 to study which activities were offshored (either within the boundaries of the firm or outside) and where. Our aim is to better understand how firms have redefined their boundaries and what are the consequences for the future prospects of manufacturing activities.
 

More about Frederic Warzynski