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IT Outsourcing—A Source of Innovation? Microeconometric Evidence for Germany
Author(s) -
Bertschek Irene,
Erdsiek Daniel,
Trenz Manuel
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
managerial and decision economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.288
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1099-1468
pISSN - 0143-6570
DOI - 10.1002/mde.2835
Subject(s) - outsourcing , business , industrial organization , service (business) , german , econometric analysis , manufacturing sector , service provider , business administration , marketing , economics , labour economics , econometrics , archaeology , history
Does IT outsourcing really influence firms' process innovativeness? We investigate this question with a distinguished view on manufacturing and service sectors. Previous studies suggest firms sourcing out IT services to external service providers are generally more process innovative. Based on a firm‐level data set comprising 1452 firms from the German manufacturing and services sectors, the econometric analysis confirms a positive and significant relationship between IT outsourcing and process innovation activity on an aggregate level. As proposed by our framework of differences between manufacturing and service firms, a more detailed analysis reveals that this positive relationship only holds for services firms. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.