Características de la subcontratación electrónica en Españaevidencias empíricas

Resumen

The relevance of the electronic industry in the Spanish economy, as well as the increasing relevance of subcontracting relationships in such sector, ask for a greater knowledge about the electronic subcontracting market and the features of these kind of inter-firm agreements. Precisely, this study collects an empirical research about this topic. Such research has been accomplished with primary information coming from the contractor firms of the Spanish electronic industry. In turn, the results obtained have been compared with the information coming from a pilot study carried out within the EU ¿nationwide and European results being equivalents. Thus, the results show that subcontracting agreements stand out because of their domestic character, and because ¿pyramidal structures¿ of vendors are not usual. On the other hand, results indicate that there exists a low economic dependence of vendors on contractor firms and vice versa. Finally, apart from the decrease of production costs, the search of flexibility in terms of volume supplied stands out as a basic reason for subcontracting, and the quality and ¿on time¿ delivery of the products supplied as the principal preconditions for establishing and maintaining a subcontracting relationship.