Outsourcing and Offshoring in Southern and Eastern Europe: Reasons and Drivers for Competitiveness

Creation and development of scientific and technological sectors of Southern and Eastern Europe (SEE) economies is one of the most crucial conditions of their sustainable development and further integration into "developed world league" as its full-fledged members. International outsourcing (offshoring) can become sustainable factors in this process as it can enable creation of cluster economy and increase national economies' competitiveness. In this paper the main emphasize is laid on the influence which international outsourcing process can have on development of science intensive and innovative sectors in SEE states: current position of SEE countries in the world outsourcing markets was ascertained along with the overview of main institutional factors that define attractiveness of SEE countries for international outsourcing purposes. The main contribution, ensued from the fact that outsourcing/offshoring phenomena, even though widely recognized, still has no common notion and those that exist need to be re-specified in order to highlight the most relevant and important features of outsourcing, includes the new, integral understanding of outsourcing/offshoring. The results of research show that SEE states are well-positioned to become a key outsourcing location for high-end outsourcing, however, some key government supports will be needed to achieve that.