The Role of the Outsourcing Contract from a Partnership-based Perspective

The definition of relational contents which outsourcer and outsourcee arrange and formalize inside a contract is one of the critical success factors of the outsourcing choice. The contract criticality is greater if the outsourcing aim is made of highly strategic activities, functions, or processes and if the real aim is not the cost saving but the sharing of added value resources, skills, and knowledge. That is, this paper aims to provide some conceptual insights about the role of the contract with a specific reference to the strategic outsourcing, which is the kind of outsourcing where the relationship between the outsourcer and outsourcee is set inside the “partnership-based” logic. In particular the remarks proposed concern the role of the contract as a tool to face the risk and manage the relationship.