Social Sciences and History / Unit 12 SSH 1112 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Outsourcing or Offshoring: Naming the Production Strategy
The idea
The exam describes a firm's move and asks the term, and the anchor's industry chapter defines the set. Outsourcing shifts production of a good or provision of a service from within a company to an external source; offshoring shifts it to another country; the two can combine or occur separately. A supply chain is all the products and processes in producing a good. JIT delivery brings components right before they are needed to cut inventory and storage costs. Containerization moves goods in standardized shipping containers; intermodal transport uses more than one mode; logistics coordinates the whole. Footloose capitalism is production's spatial flexibility. Back office services are staff who never meet clients.
In practice
Given "the firm closed its own call center and hired a contractor in the same city", outsourcing. Given "the firm moved its own factory abroad", offshoring. Given "the firm hired a contractor abroad", both. Given "parts arrive the morning they are installed", JIT. Given "a box goes ship to rail to truck unopened", intermodal containerization. Ask two questions: did the work leave the company, and did it leave the country.
Where people slip
The trap is treating the two as synonyms; the anchor separates who does the work from where. The second trap is footloose capitalism as a firm's whim; the anchor defines it as spatial flexibility the transport system makes possible.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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