Human Asset Internalization and Global Sourcing of Services: A Strategic Management Analysis on Activity-Level

In this exploratory study we look at human asset aspects of offshore outsourcing of services that over time become more advanced and strategic potent to the outsourcing firms. As a consequence, the outsourcing firms might want to internalize the operations. We focus on the ways that outsourcing firms may transfer key personnel of local service providers to whollyownedsubsidiaries. We argue that a felt need for applying more powerful incentives on key personnel of the service provider ‐ to harness and empower the sourcing operation ‐ may in itself be a motive for, and key driver of, the internalization process.