Managers’ Experiences on Outsourcing of Non-Core Services Practices in Tanzania Public Sector

This chapter aimed to explore the experiences of managers of public sectors basing on their opinions regarding the motives behind outsourcing practices in the public sector. Specifically, the chapter intends to understand whether managers consider outsourcing as a strategy for cost-serving, enhancing the quality of service delivery and or a strategy for focusing on core competencies. Interviews were conducted with thirty-two (32) public sector managers and fifteen (15) managers from private sectors that were purposefully selected. The results show that the outsourcing decisions in public sector are aimed at complementing knowledge, skill and competence gaps in service delivery. The managers’ experiences indicated that outsourcing in public sector enables the sector to focus on core competencies in order to enhance performances. Moreover, the experiences of managers show that out-sourcing reduces operational costs and improves the quality of service delivery. The findings imply that managers consider outsourcing as a tool to bring about economic, efficiency, effectiveness and equitable service delivery to the public in Tanzania. From a managerial perspective, this study helps public decision makers to consider core competencies in allocating human resources to various functions. To obtain an expected result, decision makers in both public and private sector should consider outsourcing to all functions for they do not have the necessary competencies to save costs and to enhance performance and business continuity. The main limitation of this study is generalization of the findings because the data were collected from managers’ opinions which may not necessarily be objective enough to generalize the findings. Moreover, the sample is not large enough, therefore it is recommended that future researchers can use a large sample and or analyze outsourcing of non-core business in public sector from risk-based perspectives.