Offshoring process: A comparative investigation of danish and Japanese manufacturing companies

The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the knowledge on how production offshoring and international operations management vary across cultural contexts. The chapter attempts to shed light on how companies approach the process of offshoring in different cultural contexts. In order to achieve this objective, the authors employ a qualitative methodology and compare three Danish and three Japanese manufacturing companies. On the basis of this comparative investigation, the authors find that the parent companies from both contexts employ offshoring as a remedy for the challenges of globalisation. Yet there are clear differences in how offshoring is conducted in Denmark and Japan. The main differences are outlined in a framework and explained employing cultural variables. The findings lead to a number of propositions suggesting that the process of offshoring is not simply a uniform technical-rational calculation of the most efficient organisation of activities across national borders, but it is rather specific to the parent companies' national contexts.