Outsourcing by Private and Public Organisations: How much Could Public Bodies Learn?

Outsourcing is already for longer period used in private sector as a tool of rationalization of internal processes. As the result of New Public Management changes it was started to be implemented also in public organizations. The paper starts with brief introduction of the concept of outsourcing, both in relation to private and public sector practices. Its core parts are devoted to analysis of experience with outsourcing of internal services in private and public organizations in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Some interesting conclusions are derived from the research. First, outsourcing is relatively frequently used by private firms in the Czech Republic. Second, we may argue that the “quality” of implementation of outsourcing in the private sector in the Czech Republic is a bit limited. Results from our analysis support general expectations that in conditions where the private sector is not able to deal with outsourcing perfectly (and risk of corruption is relatively high), the practice of outsourcing in the public sector is of limited quality.