University of Twente Student Theses
Unravelling an Enigma: The Importance of Location In Global Supplier Selection
Brandt, Vasilij (2015) Unravelling an Enigma: The Importance of Location In Global Supplier Selection.
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| Abstract: | In the last decades, the concept of outsourcing has become more profound in companies within most industries. The removal of trade barriers, the ease of travel, and the enhanced means of communication have all facilitated the proliferation of sourcing out activities. However, although outsourcing has become of greater importance in the last decades, the process of supplier selection, which is one of the initial and most important steps of the overall outsourcing process, is still conducted ineffectively by many firms in various industries. A low array of decision variables are considered in the decision processes, and the methods used to execute the final decision(s) often lack sophistication. However, one of the major issues in modern supplier selection processes is that buying firms do not consider location-specific factors; firms do instead evaluate suppliers strictly based on their internal characteristics and capabilities. To help integrate the location-specific factors into modern supplier selection decisions, this study first accumulates a large amount of location-specific factors from Foreign Direct Investment literature. Those factors are subsequently ranked together with the generic supplier-specific factors based on an empirical study, thereby identifying whether such factors are acknowledged by practitioners for outsourcing engagements in the modern economy. Lastly, the most important supplier-specific and location-specific factors are integrated into supplier selection decision-making software which is organised around collaborative optimisation. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 85 business administration, organizational science |
| Programme: | Business Administration MSc (60644) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/67740 |
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