Offshore-sourcing strategies and the puzzle of productivity: a micro-level analysis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess whether offshoring strategies are able to substantially enhance firms’ international competitiveness in terms of productivity, innovativeness and skill composition for a panel of Italian manufacturing firms. Design/methodology/approach A set of hypotheses derived from the extant literature is tested on data from balance sheets and qualitative surveys of about 4,000 Italian firms. The methodology...