We study the sourcing decision of a manufacturer in choosing between sole sourcing and multi-sourcing for a production component, when available sources are under different efficiency levels. In our model, the manufacturer can either produce the component in-house, or outsource to less efficient external suppliers. Without any demand uncertainty or ex-ante capacity constraint with in-house production, we find that the manufacturer may establish only limited in-house production capacity and eventually outsource to less efficient external suppliers. Such partial outsourcing is purely strategic and is due to the existence of single-source components, with which the manufacturer solely relies on key suppliers who possess great market power. Partial outsourcing enables the manufacturer to mitigate the pricing power of key suppliers, which is optimal to the manufacturer so long as the associated efficiency loss of outsourcing is not too pronounced. Moreover, cost increase in outsourcing may lead the manufacturer to outsource even more in order to boost its profitability.

中文翻译：

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存在单一来源组件的战略性部分外包

我们研究了当可用资源处于不同效率水平时，制造商在为生产组件选择单一采购和多源采购时的采购决策。在我们的模型中，制造商可以在内部生产组件，也可以外包给效率较低的外部供应商。在没有任何需求不确定性或内部生产的事前产能限制的情况下，我们发现制造商可能只建立有限的内部生产能力，并最终外包给效率较低的外部供应商。这种部分外包纯粹是战略性的，因为存在单一来源的组件，制造商完全依赖具有强大市场力量的关键供应商。部分外包使制造商能够减轻关键供应商的定价权，只要外包的相关效率损失不是太明显，这对制造商来说是最佳的。此外，外包成本的增加可能会导致制造商为了提高盈利能力而更多地外包。