Growing from local to global, or not? An empirical testing of global sourcing's dominating stage model view.

Abstract

Several studies have explored the drivers and barriers of global sourcing and how this differs between countries. This study extends previous research by not only considering these variables, but also taking into account the stage models developed to explain the differences between companies within a single country. The results indicate that 6 different clusters can be formed, each with a different set of drivers and barriers, and corresponding to various stages of the stage models. Therefore, this study bridges two main aspects of sourcing internationalization processes.