Strategic sourcing: Developing a progressive framework for make-or-buy decisions

Artikel

Purpose: Make-or-buy decisions represent a critical dilemma faced by many firms. The appropriate decision between designing and manufacturing parts or services in-house, buying them from external providers or combining both is a fundamental firm process. This paper seeks to address this question by updating the traditional make-or-buy literature with new academic insights, developing a make-or-buy framework with a tool for its operationalisation to help managers evaluate sourcing decisions. Design/methodology/approach: First, a literature review of the principal theories and approaches about make-or-buy decisions is discussed. Second, the development of the make-or-buy framework is described and explained based on the results of qualitative interviews with practitioners and a set of interviews of an in-firm case study. Third, the results and the implementation of the framework are outlined. Findings: Our study not only validates the proposed framework through a set of in-firm make-or-buy decisions, but also provides a structure for its implementation and design a decision matrix with a pairwise comparison tool for helping practitioners to put the framework into practice. Research limitations/implications: This paper aims to contribute to the study of the make-or-buy literature in supply chain management through the graphical representation of why and how make-or-buy decisions are made. Interestingly, the paper presents relevant dimensions and factors to be studied and evaluates possible outcomes when approaching make-or-buy decisions. Originality/value: Our results suggest that practitioners should combine this framework with a pairwise comparison matrix and a multi-criteria decision analysis based on the TOPSIS methodology to assess strategic sourcing decisions.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management (JIEM) ; ISSN: 2013-0953 ; Volume: 13 ; Year: 2020 ; Issue: 1 ; Pages: 133-154 ; Barcelona: OmniaScience

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Management
• Subject: make-or-buy decisions ; decision-making ; outsourcing ; plural sourcing ; hybrid sourcing ; literature review

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Medina-Serrano, Rubén ; González-Ramírez, Reyes ; Gascó, José ; Llopis, Juan
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): OmniaScience
• (where): Barcelona
• (when): 2020

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.3926/jiem.2858
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/261711
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET