Sourcing, insourcing and two times outsourcing: four phases of procurement of telecommunications services within the Swedish public sector

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze how and why the question of outsourcing or insourcing within a specific empirical context, telecommunications services, has been handled differently over time.Design/methodology/approach – A longitudinal study on procurement of telecommunications for the Swedish public sector's organizations during the last 40 years. The empirical data were collected from three case studies and one research project.Findings – The paper identifies four phases: from a simple buying situations, via insourcing of equipment in order to produce some services in‐house, to outsourcing of telecommunications in a first step and to outsourcing of combined data and telecommunications in a second step. Three major contextual determinants are identified for the public procurement of telecommunications services: de‐monopolization, rapid technical development and pressure on public agencies from politicians, citizens and others. In addition to low cost, core competence, contr...