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Stratified Outsourcing Theory

The terminology of sourcing, outsourcing and insourcing is developed in detail on the basis of the preliminary definitions of outsourcing and insourcing and related activities and competences as given in our three previous papers on business mereology, on the concept of a sourcement, and on outsourcing competence respectively. Besides providing more a detailed semantic analysis we will introduce, explain, and illustrate a number of additional concepts including: principal unit of a sourcement, theme of a sourcement, current sourcement, (un)stable sourcement, and sourcement transformation. A three level terminology is designed: (i) factual level: operational facts that hold for sourcements including histories thereof, (ii) business level: roles and objectives of various parts of the factual level description, thus explaining each partner's business process and business objectives, (iii) contract level: specification of intended facts and intended business models as found at the business level. Orthogonal to these three conceptual levels, are four temporal aspects: history, now (actuality), transformation, and transition. A detailed description of the well-known range of sourcement transformations is given.