EU eastern enlargement and outsourcing: Opportunity or threat?

In the course of the EU eastern enlargement the topic of outsourcing has been under considerable discussion. For Prof. Wilfried Fuhrmann, Potsdam University, "the opportunities from eastern enlargement in regional outsourcing lie... in the pressure on reduction of government intervention". Stefanie Bechert and Gertraud Cellarius of the German Center for Productivity and Innovation (RKW) in Eschborn assert that for the majority of German enterprises ... a targeted outsourcing ... is an option". Prof. Jürgen Weigand and Peter Kreutter, University for Business Management (WHU) in Vallendar, and Dr. Steffen Kinkel, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems Engineering and Innovation Research in Karlsruhe, stress that the employment effects for domestic companies depend on the strategy that enterprises pursue with their foreign production facilities.