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We explore offshore outsourcing through the lenses of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). First, we review the outcomes of the 30-year debate in business ethics on issues related to offshore outsourcing. We then cluster authors into two groups—the justice-centered approach and the welfare-centered approach—corresponding to different perspectives on the ethical challenges of offshoring. In the second part, we present and apply the four fundamental principles of the CST (human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity and the common good) to offshoring, in dialogue with the previous debate. The unity and interconnection among the CST’s fundamental tenets provide a cohesive framework that integrates the points made by the justice-centered and welfare-centered approaches, while introducing the principle of solidarity, more focused on the worker as a person and their flourishing. CST also stresses the need to initiate processes oriented toward structural changes for the sake of human dignity and the common good.

Developed-country multinationals (DMNEs) have increasingly engaged in the practice of ofshoring innovation to emerging countries. In this article, we leverage and extend the institution-based view to further our understanding of this phenomenon. Specifcally, we examine the diferential efects of formal and informal institutions on DMNEs’ strategic decision to ofshore innovation activities aimed at augmenting (versus exploiting) home-base-knowledge to emerging countries. Concerning formal institutions, we argue that the stronger the emerging host country’s IP protection, the higher the likelihood that a DMNE ofshores innovation activities aimed at augmenting home-base-knowledge. Regarding informal institutions, we argue that the greater the cultural diferences between the developed home country and the emerging host country, the higher the likelihood that a DMNE ofshores innovation activities aimed at augmenting home-base-knowledge. Additionally, we propose a key contingency that attenuates the relationship involving IP protection while strengthening the one involving cultural diferences: the DMNE’s experience with ofshoring innovation. Analysis of 128 ofshoring innovation implementations by 78 DMNEs in ten emerging countries provides support for all our hypotheses except for the one focused on the moderation efect of experience on the relationship involving cultural diferences.