
This article explores the growth of business outsourcing, how it works, and why two firms might logically enter into an outsourcing arrangement not only to cut production costs - but also to craft a sensible governance compromise. It also asks, more generally, whether increased diversity of organizational structures is starting to provide firms with a richer menu of strategies for sharing operational risk - in the same way that recent innovations in corporate finance and capital markets are dramatically altering ownership strategies on the right side of the balance sheet.