The Make-or-Buy Decision in the Croatian Shipbuilding Industry: A Transaction Cost Economics Approach

• Authors: Ermacora Sergio , Smajić Senada
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper examines the make-or-buy decision in the Croatian shipbuilding industry using a Transaction Cost Economics Approach. In other words, shipyards' decision to ‘make’ a component or to ‘buy’ it from market firms is analysed in relation to certain characteristics of the transactions in order to assess whether this decision is made in accordance with the theory's predictions.The empirical investigation, which is based on a sample of 167 observations, suggests that transaction cost hypotheses are only partially confirmed. Namely, while physical asset specificity and complexity are likely to increase the probability that a transaction will be internalised, temporal asset specificity and frequency seem not to affect significantly the integration decision. However, as the analysis leaves much of the variance in the patterns of vertical integration unexplained, the finding presented in this study should be seen as tentative. The inclusion of the remaining shipyards in the analysis as well as of new and more variables in the model are likely to improve the reliability of the results.

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: South East European Journal of Economics and Business
• Year: 2009
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 81-105

Dates

published

2009-04-01

online

2011-06-03

Contributors

author

Ermacora Sergio

• Independent Researcher, Bosnia & Herzegovina

author

Smajić Senada

• LSE Consortium Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10033-009-0006-3