Diverse virtual social networks: Implications for remote software testing teams

This paper evaluates offshore outsourcing in the IT testing industry and determines what conditions determine its success. There is particular focus on the influence of diversity in teams on group relationships. Two studies are described: the first, investigated the perceptions of professional software testers on the critical factors of offshore outsourcing; and the second study looked at the ability for diverse teams to form close working relationships through virtual networks. We find that overt diversity factors inhibit interaction across nationality boundaries. The limitations of virtual networks for fostering personal communications is apparent in preventing group members from overcoming the initial aversion to mix with out-group members, which could be achieved with closer and more personal communications between members with different diversity factors in normal face to face communications. Where software testing teams are outsourced globaly, and must rely on virtual communications, there seems potential for significant difficulties in developing close working relationships, which on the one hand, can be negative for group cohesion, but one the other hand, can be positive for encouraging imparitality

Risks and Hidden Costs: A Study of 26 Outsourced Projects

Despite the current unfavorable outlook of the larger economy, there has been a steady increase in information systems outsourcing by organizations which is projected to reach $97.9 billion in 2012. Ordinarily, organizations outsource their software projects to avoid the risks associated with developing the software internally and to control costs. However, a study of twenty six outsourced projects indicates that such organizations face unique risks and hidden costs that are particular to software outsourcing. This paper describes research done to estimate the effort expended by organizations in overseeing and participating in outsourced software projects and the implications for identifying risks and predicting costs of such projects. For many of the organizations that participated in the survey, uncovering the actual costs and risks of an outsourced project was an eye opener: the hidden costs and risks are surprisingly significant and are typically not managed by the organization

The Role of Corporate Cultural Similarity for Outsourcing Relationship Quality and Outsourcing Success

What is the impact of corporate cultural similarity (CCS) on outsourcing success? In this paper, we use data from a survey with the largest 1,000 banks in Germany to show that CCS has a substantial effect on outsourcing success which is mainly mediated by different dimensions of outsourcing relationship quality. The more comparable the corporate cultures of the vendor firm and the client firm, the higher is the outsourcing success from the client’s perspective. Finally, we highlight our future steps of research in investigating the impact of particular types of corporate culture in an IT outsourcing context