Contract manufacturing, market competition, and labor productivity in US manufacturing industries

How does contract manufacturing /outsourcing affect productivity? Existing studies have conflicting empirical findings regarding this issue. This paper aims to reconcile these in the literature by viewing research question through lens of property rights theory. The authors develop a moderated moderation model empirically examine how productivity is influenced interactions among manufacturing, competition, and suppliers’ spillover. Our shows that though been reported literature, each finding holds true under certain conditions which are identified our paper. In brief, improves when growth above average focal industry’s competition at medium level. On other hand, if low, or too high impact could be negative not significant.