Global Sourcing: An Analysis of the Implications for Organization Design

Global sourcing has become an intended practice for the majority of multinational companies. Due to increasing competition, companies seek to exploit global purchasing synergies across geographical and business units. This requires an organisation that emphasizes the value of shared interest while granting each purchasing unit the necessary flexibility to adapt to their particular environment.

Gerhard Trautmann focuses on how companies can balance this trade-off in purchasing exploring the organization design requirements of a global sourcing strategy. The first essay presents a comprehensive framework for the analysis of integration mechanisms in hybrid purchasing organizations and empirical evidence for their application in MNCs. The second essay sets the focus of analysis at the category level providing a portfolio management approach for global sourcing. Finally, the third essay analyzes how global integration is carried out for different types of categories and provides explanations for the empirical findings by elaborating the information processing framework.