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.