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Open research questions in Outsourcing and Supply Chain Management

126 gap statements mined from Outsourcing and Supply Chain Management papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 1,647 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • The study highlights the need for strong capability and policy mixes to yield broader spillovers.

    The Nearshoring Loop: A Review of Triggers, Location Choice, and Captured Outcomes · 2025 · DOI

  • The existing literature on nearshoring is North Atlantic and manufacturing-centric. There is a lack of coverage of the Global South and integration of environmental and inclusion metrics. The paper aims to address these gaps by providing a more comprehensive framework for analyzing nearshoring.

    The Nearshoring Loop: A Review of Triggers, Location Choice, and Captured Outcomes · 2025 · DOI

  • Current solutions are fragmented and do not integrate digitalization technologies and standardized examination processes. There is a need for a new process development framework concept that addresses this gap. The study identifies the importance of integrating digitalization technologies into logistics process development to enhance decision-making and efficiency.

    New Dimensions in the Study of Outsourcing Logistics Services: The Role of Digitalization in Enhancing Efficiency · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research should explore the broader impact of sourcing strategies on innovation, patient outcomes, and HIT adaptability in evolving health care environments.

    Two dimensions of information technology sourcing strategies and hospital performance: Vendor turnover and application concentration · 2026 · DOI

  • The impact of these conflicts on cross‐border buyer–supplier transactions remains underexplored, as does the capability of global suppliers to mitigate such risks by locking in their foreign buyers.

    Locking in overseas buyers amid geopolitical conflicts · 2024 · DOI

  • Firstly, it presents the specific and under-explored case of a born-offshored firm engaged in outsourced reshoring; secondly, it sheds light on the roles that key suppliers may play for the reshoring process; thirdly, it explores the formation of business relationships in the context of reshoring.

    The roles of key suppliers in network formation when reshoring · 2024 · DOI

  • Given the sometimes-limited knowledge and resources for digital marketing, SMEs often outsource digital marketing to service providers.

    Digital Marketing Outsourcing Relationships Between SMEs and Service Providers: An Agency Theory Perspective · 2024 · DOI

  • There is limited evidence on how nearshoring affects labor-market outcomes at the industry level. Most existing analyses focus on trade and foreign direct investment flows or firm-level export responses. The paper aims to fill this gap by providing an industry-level view of the labor-market effects of nearshoring in Mexico.

    Early effects of nearshoring in the manufacturing labor market in Mexico · 2026 · DOI

  • Having noted this, the study addresses a critical gap in understanding the benefits, opportunities, risks, and threats associated with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outsourcing in banks and provides a comprehensive analysis of its impact on governance, compliance, and operational performance.

    Outsourcing Strategies in Cooperative Banking: Balancing Governance, ESG Integration, and Compliance · 2025 · DOI

  • Companies require an efficient supply chain (SC) to respond rapidly to market demand, necessitating collaboration with customers and suppliers and integrating advanced technologies in production processes; however, relationships among those variables remain under-explored.

    Responsiveness supply chain in the Mexican Maquiladora Industry: The role of AMT, information sharing and pull production process · 2025 · DOI

  • While resilience is increasingly acknowledged as a critical capability, it remains unclear how suppliers develop resilience when conventional GVC governance strategies, often grounded in institutional stability, prove insufficient.

    Resilience of GVC suppliers in politically unstable regions: The roles of governance and trust · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research can explore the application of dual sourcing in other industries. Future research can investigate the impact of dual sourcing on supply chain resilience in different contexts.

    Dual sourcing strategies · 2024 · DOI

  • The paper highlights the need for companies to develop strategies to mitigate geopolitical tensions, tariffs, and supply disruptions.

    Dual sourcing strategies · 2024 · DOI

  • However, the collaborative dynamics underpinning strategies for continuous service innovation remain underexplored, such that extant research predominantly adopts an organization-centric perspective and fails to offer a comprehensive view of collaborative innovation initiatives that integrate consecutive projects across technology life cycles.

    A collaborative approach to manage continuous service innovation · 2024 · DOI

  • Have domestic workers employed by the outsourced domestic cleaning service supplier become just like assembly-line workers, where they are anonymous to their clients, performing routine tasks with little recognition from those whose homes they are servicing? Future studies could focus on domestic workers' views on outsourcing and the effects it has on their working conditions and employment relations.

    Is outsourcing better? Clients' views on contracting in domestic cleaning services · 2021 · DOI

  • The study concluded that HR outsourcing as a competitive strategy in Malaysia is still relatively new and probably many of its potential benefits are not fully understood.

    HR OUTSOURCING SUCCESS: DOES PARTNERSHIP QUALITY VARIABLES MATTER? · 2013 · DOI

  • Historians have not paid sufficient attention to the inside contract system. The paper aims to fill this gap by providing a deeper understanding of the development of manufacturing enterprise.

    The inside contract system of production and organization: A neglected aspect of the history of the firm · 1987 · DOI

  • There is a need for comparative information about local service firms. The evaluation of service firms is a complex task that requires a comprehensive approach. Existing consumer information programs have limitations and challenges.

    Evaluating service firms: Approaches with policy recommendations · 1987 · DOI

  • The investigation is limited to countries exporting manufactured products. The study excludes foods and beverages, tobacco, non-ferrous metals, and several other categories. The separation of developed and developing economies is based on per capita incomes of $2,250 or higher and $2,030 or lower.

    Intra-Industry specialization · 1986 · DOI

  • A full managerial comprehension of the connection between supply chain integration (SCI) and business performance is missing so far and earlier results are inconclusive.

    THE DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS OF INTERNAL ENABLERS ON INTERNAL INTEGRATION AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE · 2023 · DOI

  • The factory owners lacked the training and ability to organize the production of precision tools or guns.

    The inside contract system of production and organization: A neglected aspect of the history of the firm · 1987 · DOI

  • In essence, the paper contributes to the reshoring literature, by stressing the importance of supply network formation in the reshoring process and by identifying the multiplicity of roles that key suppliers can play when implementing reshoring, and to the industrial marketing and purchasing (IMP) literature, by showing how relationships and networks develop during reshoring, a phenomenon so far understudied by IMP…

    The roles of key suppliers in network formation when reshoring · 2024 · DOI

  • The findings of this study not only fill existing knowledge gaps in understanding the underlying governance mechanisms of collaborative contracts, but also extend the comprehension of the interplay between relational and formal governance, emphasizing the crucial role of mutual trust in collaborative contracts.

    Impacts of Relational and Formal Governance on Information Sharing and Project Management Performance in Collaborative Contracts: A Mixed-Method Approach · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research is required to validate our resilient error-as-process archetype so that best practices can be identified and drawn upon to contain and reduce errors and mitigate rework in construction and other ETO production systems…

    Rework in relational engineer-to-order production systems: An ‘error-as-process’ archetype · 2024 · DOI

  • The shift from entrepreneurial to professional management, - The need to respond to critical incidents, - The importance of building relationships…

    Distributor contributions to partnerships with manufacturers · 1987 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Outsourcing and Supply Chain Management

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) Future research should explore the broader impact of sourcing strategies on innovation, patient outcomes, and HIT adaptability in evolving health care environments (“Two dimensions of information technology sourcing strategies and hospital…”, 2026); (2) There is limited evidence on how nearshoring affects labor-market outcomes at the industry level (“Early effects of nearshoring in the manufacturing labor market in Mexico”, 2026); (3) There is a lack of coverage of the Global South and integration of environmental and inclusion metrics (“The Nearshoring Loop: A Review of Triggers, Location Choice, and Captured…”, 2025); (4) There is a need for a new process development framework concept that addresses this gap (“New Dimensions in the Study of Outsourcing Logistics Services: The Role of…”, 2025); (5) While resilience is increasingly acknowledged as a critical capability, it remains unclear how suppliers develop resilience when conventional GVC governance strategies, often grounded in institutional stability, prove insufficient (“Resilience of GVC suppliers in politically unstable regions: The roles of…”, 2025). 126 gap statements have been mined from Outsourcing and Supply Chain Management papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 1,647 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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