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The purpose of this paper is to conduct empirical investigation of value co-creation phenomena in IT services outsourcing. This survey based research enabled to identify antecedents of value co-creation and their impact on value outcomes.

This empirical study identifies 25 drivers of value co-creation in IT outsourcing services. These drivers were identified from reported literature and by studying IT project reports. The data were collected from client and supplier organizations followed by verification of the drivers (using PCA and CFA methodologies) that contribute significantly to value co-creation in the IT services outsourcing domain. Furthermore, using SEM and linear regression, the authors have verified the strength of their relationships with value co-creation.

This research is subjected to exploratory factor analysis, which resulted in six antecedents of value co-creation in IT services outsourcing. These antecedents include alliance relationship, strategic intent, service actualization, intrapreneurship, collective capabilities, and resource management. The alliance relationship, strategic intent, service actualization, and intrapreneurship are found to be significant for value co-creation. While collective capabilities as a standalone was not significant, the relationship of collective capabilities to value co-creation has achieved significance under the influence of alliance relationship, strategic intent, and other antecedents – when tested and hypothesized through the SEM path model.

The research has the following limitations. The antecedents identified are contextual. The potential illustrative, but not exhaustive reasons, for the change of the context may be due to contract duration, age of the project, relationship maturity, expected value outcome from both the parties, etc. The drivers identified in this research are applicable only to IT services (IT and ITES outsourcing). They cannot be generalized to other B2B outsourcing relationship. The authors propose the conducting of separate research to identify the priorities of these antecedents for different types of outsourcing as well different types of value outcomes.

This study has added to the knowledge on value co-creation in IT services outsourcing relationships through empirical modeling. From the perspective practitioners of IT industry, this work brings rich information of what are the drivers to value co-creation and their significance on value outcomes in IT services outsourcing. It can provide guidelines to both clients and service providers of similar industry to assess their current practices for value co-creation and re-prioritize their activities and budgets based on the significance of value based benefits. Moreover, practitioners in the IT services industry can use these value drivers and understand the antecedents for value co-creation. As this work is from a dual perspective, both clients and suppliers can assess the applicability of these drivers and antecedents and adopt them to realize mutual value.

In the past, researchers have focussed on value after it was created and shared among the respective relationship partners, and very few emphasized the need for proactive identification of the antecedents of value co-creation. Researchers have emphasized on the need for an empirical approach, because most of the published studies are theoretical and conceptual in nature. Hence, the significant contribution of this empirical study is to validate the value co-creation drivers identified from literature and qualitative study (case studies) with IT industry practitioners (no. 256) across the globe and the relevance of antecedents to B2B IT services outsourcing body of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the roles various drivers such as cost, strategy and risk play when business process outsourcing/information technology enabled services (BPO/ITES) firms in India outsource their information technology (IT) functions to third-party vendors. If all key drivers associated with IT outsourcing were understood, and such knowledge of those variables was incorporated into the reasons for outsourcing, there would be a greater probability of a successful outcome.

A “hybrid” (quantitative and qualitative) research methodology was used to gain insight into the IT-outsourcing paradigm by BPO/ITES firms in India. A structured questionnaire related to IT-outsourcing activities conducted from 1999 to 2010 was distributed to nine firms. The resulting data were then analyzed. In addition, two Indian BPO/ITES firms that had outsourced their IT to a third-party vendor to cut cost generously granted in-depth information into their IT-outsourcing paradigm and life cycle.

IT outsourcing is perhaps more complicated than other types of outsourcing. Focussing purely on cost is very risky. Practitioners need to take all three drivers – cost, strategy and risk into consideration. Any degradation of services or responsibilities due to IT outsourcing would mean a very unhappy client or even loss of business.

BPO/ITES firms in India tend to focus only on cost reduction from IT outsourcing without taking into consideration other equally important drivers such as strategy and risk. This paper counsels a holistic approach toward IT outsourcing for a successful outcome. In addition, an IT-outsourcing framework and guide is proposed for practitioners.

India emerged as one of the fastest growing economies of the world during the 1990s because of the spectacular dynamism shown by the services sector. India’s services sector has been burgeoning fast and one of the major driver’s of the growth of services sector is Information Technology (IT) and Information Technol ogy Enabled Services (ITES). It is well documented in literature that IT impacts growth by different channels. In this study we try to empirically verify the question: Can IT and ITES be an engine of growth? Using micro‐level data of 100 households of 20 IT and ITES firms along with secondary data we tried to estimate the extent of indirect employment generation at macro‐level and the share of IT and ITES in total employment and total value added. According to our study, one job for skilled professional employed in IT and ITES spins off jobs for 0.48 semi‐skilled, low skills or unskilled workers. As per our estimates, the 16 lakh workers who are expected to be directly employed in IT sector in the FY 2008 would generate secondary em ployment for 7,68,000 people which would constitute 0.16 per cent of total employment. However, the share of consumption expenditure of 16 lakh professionals would be 20 per cent of total value added. Assuming the consumption expenditure of the IT and ITES workers and total value added to be the same/constant when we tried to assess the contribution of consumption expenditure of 2.3 million workers (who are projected to be directly absorbed by IT sector by 2010, NASSCOM, 2005) to total value added it comes out to be 29 per cent of total value added. The study says that the proportion of IT‐ITES in total employment may be small but its contribution to total value added is still very high. Indeed IT and ITES can be an engine of growth in India’s economy by way of generating demand impulses in the economy as has been hypothesised and shown through the present study. Keeping in view the contributions of this sector and its huge untapped potential as evident from the present study and various other studies, there is a need for introduction and implementation of policy initiatives to address the challenges faced by this sector and to sustain the growth driven by the services sector.

Globalisation accompanied by the rapid development of the information and communication technology (ICT) has largely boosted international trade in services over the past decade or so. Because services account for a higher proportion of production costs, firms are taking every opportunity to go for lower-cost solutions for the provision of business process services. International sourcing of business support services has, therefore, been a preferred solution to the ongoing cost pressures and related skill shortages experienced in many developed countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore work‐related attitudes of information technology (IT) enabled business process outsourcing (ITES‐BPO) employees.

There are 25 firms operating in Sri Lanka that fall into the category of ITES‐BPO; a random sample of 117 employees from these 25 firms responded to the survey.

The findings suggest that tenure has a significant effect on task autonomy and marital status has a significant effect on working hours.

A research exploring work‐related attitudes of ITES‐BPO employees towards their work and work environment, in a South Asian country that is considered as active and promising destination for such services, could provide practitioners with key information that could enable them to make informed managerial decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to identify competency requirements that discriminate between Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and IT‐enabled business process outsourcing (ITES‐BPO) industries.

There are 25 firms operating in Sri Lanka that fall into the category of ITES‐BPO/KPO. HR managers of the 25 firms and a random sample of 117 employees from those 25 firms responded to the survey. In addition to descriptive statistics, independent sample t‐test and logistic regression were used in the data analysis.

There are differences in competency requirements for KPO and BPO services. Further, demographic variables, namely, age, the level of education, and total years of industry experience shape competency requirements.

Despite greater volume of theoretical foundations and empirical evidence for people management in BPO/KPO services, specific literature investigating and comparing competency requirements, recruitment, selection and training of ITES‐BPO and KPO employees is scarce. Therefore, a research addressing those in a South Asian country that is considered as active and promising destination for ITES‐BPO/KPO services could provide practitioners with key information that could enable them to make informed managerial decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore various risks that are associated with recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) strategy in the Indian information technology (IT)/IT-enabled service (ITes) industries.

Purposeful intensity sampling was used to select respondents from IT/ITes organizations. Twenty-eight respondents were interviewed through face-to-face semi-structured interviews and telephonic interviews. Each interview lasted for approximately 65 min. All interviews were audio recorded with the permission of the respondents and were then transcribed. The data were analyzed with the help of a qualitative technique, thematic analysis.

Results show that the stakeholders associated with RPO are not satisfied with several issues such as violation of initial contact between the applicant and the potential employer, violation of contracts by the vendor, unfair practices by the vendor, poor quality service provided by the vendor, plausibility that the vendor does not understand the culture of the client organization, inappropriate placement of human resources by the vendor, low morale of the employees and loss of managerial control due to RPO.

Small sample size and qualitative research design reduces the external validity of the findings to certain extent.

Companies deploying RPO should be wary about the plausible negative consequences. This paper offers various solutions to mitigate such risks.

This paper is a novel attempt which details various risks due to deployment of RPO from multiple stakeholder perspectives.

The aim of this paper is to extend a conceptual understanding of business process outsourcing (BPO) and its prevailing practices in the background of the post‐liberalized economic scenario of India. Efforts have also been made to discuss the major work verticals of Indian ITES‐BPO industry, which further reveals the fact of its domain expertise and in‐time delivery of services in a pre‐determined standard with least possible cost that has made India a BPO hub. The later part of the study deals with an empirical SWOT‐analysis that highlights the key factors that have significant bearing to the very flourishment of this sunshine industry.

The data collected for the analysis are secondary in nature and include various journals, periodicals, survey reports and on‐line business reports/news. The techniques like trend analysis and SWOT analysis in particular have been implemented for the purpose of study.

The paper found that in addition to the growth of traditional industries, patronization of this emerging sector is also a high necessity, looking at its socio‐economic contribution to the society on one hand and considerable amount of employment creation and income generation capabilities for the bright mass of the country that restrict “brain drain”, on the other hand.

The paper describes, analyses and critiques the outsourcing industry in India with reference to a core theory base. It is expected to be helpful in stimulating the analytical mind of the researchers and industry practitioner of the area for scientific decision making and furthering the research on this particular aspect of business.

This paper aims to carry out a qualitative analysis to compare India and China as a choice of service-provider from the perspective of Japanese MNEs for information technology (IT)-IT enabled services (ITeS) offshoring destination, using the four dimensions of the cultural-administrative-geographic-economic (CAGE) distance framework by Ghemawat (2001).

This exploratory study used a mix of primary and secondary evidence to carry out a comparative evaluation of the challenges and synergies existent between India and Japan relative to China and Japan, in the context of IT-ITeS offshoring industry. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with multiple stakeholders and the findings were classified using the CAGE framework.

The paper discusses that for IT-ITeS industry, owing to its characteristics and the changing global order in the post-pandemic world, the “distances” that matter the most for business engagement between countries are – cultural, administrative and economic. Based on the comparative analysis, it was seen that China fares better than India, from a Japanese perspective, for the case of cultural and geographic distances while India had an advantage in the case of administrative and economic distances. Thus, India and Japan seem to have higher synergies and potential mutual gains by expanding engagement in the IT-ITeS industry in future.

One of the limitations of this paper was the lack of comparable secondary data source concerning the size, growth rates, exports, employment figures for China that could have helped establish the contrast in the structure of IT-ITeS industry of India and China.

This study provides a framework for a comparative analysis of multiple facets of “distance” between competing service providing nations at bilateral, as well as unilateral level, in a holistic manner for the IT-ITeS offshoring industry. The results thus provide the gaps that shall be bridged by the policymakers for realizing mutual benefits.

Driven by Western companies' requirements for efficiency and effectiveness, a trend towards outsourcing of business activities to India and other low‐cost countries commenced in the early 1990s and has continued to grow at a surprisingly fast pace. In a relatively short timeframe India has become a global hub for back‐office services, although the effect on the urban cities is yet to be fully comprehended. As American and European companies continue to relocate their information technology services and other back office works to the subcontinent, there has been a considerable flow‐on effect on Indian corporate real estate. This paper addresses two key questions. Firstly, the factors important for Western companies' outsourcing of organisational activities to India, and secondly, the effect of business outsourcing on corporate real estate locational requirements in India. A survey of corporate real estate representatives in India and the UK was conducted with the results providing an insight into the present state and possible future direction of outsourcing for India. This research presents a unique insight into the impacts of Western business outsourcing on corporate real estate in India, and presents findings that are useful to both organisations seeking to relocate business activities to India and for property market analysts looking to understand drivers behind this sustained demand for Indian corporate real estate.