The interest in global sourcing has increased significantly in recent years, but the effects on innovation are not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse the impact of global sourcing on innovation, while taking into account both purchasing proficiency and supply chain integration practices. Based on a large scale survey of purchasing managers in 679 firms in Europe and North America, the paper shows that global sourcing has no direct impact on innovation performance. However, firms that source globally are significantly better at using their purchasing proficiency, and supplier integration for increasing the innovation provided by their suppliers.