Offshored Data Privacy: Determining the Factors and their relative Effect

For many US based companies’ offshoring, especially IT services, has become an inevitable part of business strategy. However, preserving the privacy of the sensitive information of offshored data remains as one of the major challenges and concerns. In this paper, we identify factors that affect the privacy preserving conduct of the offshore vendors and their employees towards clients’ data. We deploy a positivist case study method to examine the proposed relationships. We collected qualitative data through interviews from the project managers of client organizations as well as from the project managers of vendor organizations to test our proposed model. The result shows that the code of conduct set by the vendor organizations plays the most effective role in privacy preserving behavior of the vendors’ employees

A Method to Evaluate the Suitability of Requirements Specifications for Offshore Projects

Today, even the development of business information systems is subject to the global offshoring trend. With the division of development work in an inter-organizational and intercultural context, requirements specifications become the central means to communicate the development scope as explicitly as possible. The suitability of requirements specifications hence often is mission critical in offshore projects. To assess their suitability, we first present eight quality criteria for requirements specifications. We then discuss five critical compensating factors that may potentially balance out an insufficient specification quality during the offshore project. On this basis, we describe a method to rationally evaluate the suitability of requirements specifications for instantiating an offshore project. We illustrate the application of the method by elaborating on a large case study that has been conducted with an industry partner. The results achieved by applying our method were confirmed during the further course of the actual project

What does the evidence tell us about fragmentation and outsourcing

The paper studies fragmentation and outsourcing at the international level.Fragmentation; Outsourcing

Offshoring and backshoring: A multiple case study analysis

Abstract Motivations underscoring offshoring and backshoring are typically investigated as separate entities in the academic literature. This separation undermines a deeper comprehension of the two phenomena, and implicitly denies the conceptualization of backshoring as a possible step of the firm internationalization process. Our paper seeks to fill this gap by (1) understanding the relations (if any) among offshoring and backshoring motivations at firm level; (2) exploring whether backshoring is a "failure" of the offshoring initiative, or rather the evolution of the firm's competitive and location strategies. A content-based literature review provides the base for the identification of the key motives for offshoring and backshoring, which are then organised using a theory-grounded framework. Next, we conduct a multiple case study analysis based on four companies, searching for common patterns in offshoring and subsequent backshoring initiatives. Cases allow understanding how the motivations (Why) connect with the governance modes (How), and the location choice (Where). Building on the case findings, the paper presents some propositions for future empirical research

Comparing Chinese and the Indian Software MNCs: Domestic and Export Market Strategies and Their Interplay

China and India are emerging as major new entrants in the international software industry. Both are rapidly learning through outsourcing with multinational enterprises from advanced nations. Yet, their paths to this dynamic sector are very different. Chinese software firms have focused on their domestic market by working with foreign MNCs, while they move cautiously abroad. Indian firms, despite already being large, continue to expand overseas as well as to climb the value chain. We show that a macro perspective on the global movement of work can be gained by utilizing concepts from different approaches to the MNC. At the same time, the innovation systems perspective is necessary to explain the foundations of the industry. The paper provides hypotheses and performs an initial validation of them. It concludes that the internationalization and learning processes are somewhat different in the Chinese and Indian MNCs, and provides explanations for the different patterns.outsourcing, software industry, industrial development, MNCs, MNEs, multinational enterprise, China, India

Using E-markets for Globally Distributed Work

For over a decade, dedicated E-markets have been facilitating globally distributed systems development by enhancing the traditionally high-risk global sourcing processes. At the same time, the success and potential of E-markets for sourcing project globally can be questioned, as E-markets embody a variety of temporal, geographical and socio-cultural gaps. To study the effectiveness of the mechanisms offered by the E-markets, we ran a field experiment in which four development teams worked for 10 weeks to have a software development product designed, programmed and tested by remote developer(s) using an E-market. Three out of the four teams managed to deliver a successful product within time and budget. This result exceeded our expectations and contradicts the critical observations and opinions in several blogs and news articles. We find that for effective e-Market sourcing a skilled customer team with competences including vendor selection, software contracting, software requirements specification, development methods, cross-cultural and virtual communications, use of various cloud based tools, frequent functional and non functional testing are necessary

Labor Market Effects of Trade and FDI: Recent Advances and Research Gaps

This paper pursues three aims. First, we provide a review of current theoretical advances which pertain to the relationship between trade, FDI and labor markets. We do so under the following (not mutually exclusive) headings: (1) slicing-up the value added chain and the turn to a task-based approach, (2) firm heterogeneity and labor markets, (3) complex offshoring (integration) and sourcing strategies and (4) location of firms and labor markets. Second, we overview existing empirical work covering the labor market effects of trade and FDI. Finally, we identify and summarize the existing research gaps and thereby we highlight promising avenues for future research.offshoring, outsourcing, FDI, trade, labor markets, agglomeration