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Offshoring is a common practice to operationalize global business strategies. Data protection and privacy assurance are major concerns in such international arrangements. This paper aims to examine the strategy adopted to ensure privacy assurance in offshoring arrangements.

This is a literature review to understand privacy assurance strategies adopted in offshoring arrangements and an exploratory case study of captive offshoring arrangement with onshore location in Canada and offshoring locations in India and Philippines. A comparative analysis of the privacy laws and privacy principles of Canada, Philippines and India has been done.

It was found that at the time of migration of process or work to the offshore location, organizations follow a conformist privacy strategy; however, once in business as usual mode, they follow entrepreneur privacy strategy. Privacy impact assessment (PIA) was found to be an important element in resolving the “administrative problem” of an offshoring organization’s privacy assurance strategy.

The core privacy principles are outlined in the PIA templates; however, the current templates are designed to meet the conformist strategy and may need to be revised to include the cultural aspects, training, audit and information security requirements to plan and deliver on the entrepreneur strategy.

Offshoring organizations can benefit by planning for entrepreneur privacy assurance strategy at the inception stage. Enhancements to PIA templates to facilitate the same have been suggested.

Privacy assurance strategy followed by organizations while offshoring has been examined. This paper suggests extending the PIA process so that it covers privacy assurance requirements in offshoring arrangements. The learnings can be used in managing privacy assurance requirements in similar multi-country offshore arrangements.

We treat offshoring as a managerial innovation. Should it still be considered an innovation? The purpose of this paper is to use innovation theory, especially, Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory (DOI) to examine this question.

The paper examines the case of electronic data systems (EDS), a very large Information Technology Professional Services (ITPS) company, using a case study approach based on interviews, internal documents and secondary sources.

At EDS it was found that offshoring has been fully assimilated within just a few years. During the early 2000s, EDS faced the challenge of a large‐scale shift in the competitive landscape and moved a large share of its global operations to offshore locations. The paper shows how this innovation has been diffused within the firm through the creation of an assessment and migration organization that has institutionalized and routinized the process of offshoring. At EDS, each client project goes through a centralized offshoring assessment process to determine where best to send the work and how to perform the knowledge transfer quickly and effectively. Observations are made about the speed of diffusion: about 7‐10 years in this case, from initial innovation agenda setting to its routinization.

This paper filled a gap in studying managerial innovation; made some estimates of the speed of diffusion; and applied the hypothesized stages of innovation diffusion to the context of offshore software services. The limitation is that this is a case study and therefore generalization may be qualified.

This paper is among the first that studies offshoring (as opposed to outsourcing) in terms of DOI theory.

How appropriate are the innovation returns from offshored information technology (IT) research and development (R&D)? In light of the emergence and spate of IT R&D offshoring, this paper aims to investigate the mechanics of governance in attracting IT R&D inflow in offshored hosts and, more importantly, whether R&D offshoring provides instrumental and legitimate IT innovation returns (intellectual property (IP)) to outsourcing countries as investors.

The authors combine the calculus of host‐country governance and IT R&D inflows with IT innovation returns to the US from its offshored IT R&D investments. They argue on the basis of the golden mean – a principle of moderation where too little or too stringent governance deters IT R&D investments; more importantly, too little and too much IT R&D investments fail to stimulate IT innovation returns to the investors.

An analysis of 81 World Trade Organization (WTO) countries underscores the authors' argument that the calculus between governance and IT innovation productivity is mediated by IT R&D investments. However, the relationship is non‐linear with diminishing marginal returns‐to‐scale.

The non‐linear relationships between governance, R&D foreign direct investments (FDI) and patent‐level returns show a threshold effect often overlooked by existing research. Together, this article points out the need for researchers to consider diminishing returns to scale from overarching emphases on governance or IT R&D over‐investments.

As multinational companies in developed countries increasingly offshore IT‐related R&D, this investigation is relevant, current, and disconcerting – implying the need for multinationals to revisit their IT R&D offshoring strategies and priorities.

These research findings do not support the “win‐win” pitch for IT R&D offshoring. Instead, this research points to the fact that, while there are some economic benefits derived from R&D FDI, there are inflection points beyond which innovations returns diminish. Where the inflection point lies depends on countries as well as specific firms and industries.

The paper aims to examine the degree of changes in action readiness and mindset for the IT offshore outsourcing (offshoring) practice of a number of leading finance and insurance organisations. In particular, the article investigates the action readiness (the state, condition or quality of being ready) and mindset (habits, opinions or perceptions which affect a person's attitudes) of organisations for IT offshoring.

The research method applied has explorative research characteristics and consisted of two phases. The first phase included conducting interviews with project managers of 12 organisations in home and offshore countries and the second phase was concerned with an in‐depth analysis of projects in three organisations. By adopting a process research approach, the research takes into account the dynamics of IT offshoring projects in terms of five essential aspects, i.e. the way of working culture, method use, IT activities, IT governance, and knowledge sharing.

The findings indicate that to a greater extent organisations have realised readiness for method use and the mindset for IT activities, and that the overall improvements regarding these aspects have been modest in the last two years. On the other hand, the mindset for dealing with cultural difference has increased while readiness for flexible working, tracking of requirements change, efficient division of work, and systematic communication is still inadequate.

As the findings are concerned with a small sample and particular industries, they are limited in nature. More research is needed to update the findings in other industries with a larger sample. This would help in achieving stronger external validity.

The model used in this research can help organisations in identifying how well they are prepared for or have improved IT offshoring practice in terms of five essential aspects. Based on the degree of readiness and mindset at hand, they can make use of the findings related to particular aspects. In this respect, the findings may provide valuable insights for practitioners.

Most IT offshoring studies employ a variance research strategy, by which cause‐effect relationships among dependent, independent, and mediating factors essential to the subject matter are studied. As an alternative to this strategy, this research adopts a process research approach, which is concerned with the dynamics of IT offshoring practice, which takes into account the emergent and on‐the‐fly nature of IT projects. Such dynamics are examined in terms of two conceptual levels, i.e. action readiness (ability, condition of being readiness) and mindset (opinions, perceptions). These levels, which are often employed as a separate focus in existing studies, are found to be useful in closing the gap between action readiness and mindset for IT offshoring.

Given the global economic recession, anti‐offshoring political campaign platforms and proposed anti‐offshoring legislation in many developed countries, organizations face pressure to keep jobs in their home country. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which organizations are responding to anti‐offshoring pressures. It aims to ask whether client organizations are changing their buying patterns for information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) services because of anti‐offshoring pressures.

A survey was administered to respondents representing 84 client organizations that purchase ITO and BPO services. Nine countries are represented, but the data primarily capture US client responses.

Overall, it was found that client organizations are not changing their buying patterns because of anti‐offshoring pressures. Client respondents report strong satisfaction with offshore outsourcing of IT and business services. In particular, clients favorably reported on the costs savings and increased flexibility with offshore ITO and BPO. Consequently, the majority of respondents have not altered how they select service providers or service locations because of anti‐offshoring pressures.

The economic recession is prompting at least two pressures on client organizations: reduce costs and keep jobs at home. Based on the authors' findings, the former is more influential. Even though respondents indicated a moderate to high level of uncertainty about possible anti‐offshoring legislation being passed, client organizations continue to source IT and BP services without much consideration to anti‐offshoring pressures.

Academic researchers have conducted very few studies that examine the effects of public pressure on sourcing strategies of client organizations. This research contributes to the body of knowledge by filling that gap. ITO and BPO clients and practitioners, as well as politicians, lobbyists, and labor advocates will find the results pertinent.

Companies are increasingly engaged with global engineering networks through offshoring of product development activities from R&D to production. This creates many new challenges as operations get physically and culturally decoupled. The purpose of this paper is to improve understanding of how to effectively manage engineering offshoring activities in a context of global engineering networks. The main research question, therefore, is: “Can offshoring of engineering tasks be explained and managed using the concept of Global Engineering Networks (GEN)?” Effective approaches to handling the associated risks of engineering offshoring will be a key area of the investigation.

The research approach is based on the engineering design research methodology developed by Blessing and Chakrabarti, including a descriptive phase and a prescriptive phase. Four case studies of large multinational corporations in Denmark were carried out. Data gathering was mainly documentary studies and interviews. The main data analysis approaches were coding (Strauss and Corbin) and pattern‐matching (Yin). The dataset was analysed using the GEN framework suggested by Zhang et al. and Zhang and Gregory.

Engineering offshoring presents companies with challenges related to communication and knowledge sharing which is addressed through formal and informal mechanisms as well as a more streamlined operation. However, this did not remove the challenges. The GEN framework suggests a systematic approach to understanding global engineering networks through investigating their contextual features, critical capabilities to compete in a particular contextual circumstance, and configuration characteristics to deliver the capabilities. Using the GEN framework, the challenges faced by companies and the risks associated with their engineering offshoring activities can be explained as a mismatch between the required capabilities and the companies' ability to deliver these capabilities.

This paper provides new theoretical insight into both engineering offshoring and GEN theories by extending the GEN framework to address complications within engineering offshoring. This strengthens both academic fields, and will be able to help engineering managers to develop appropriate engineering network configurations for offshore engineering operations.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a baseline for the study of offshore outsourcing in Iceland. After an extensive search to identify any paper (English or Icelandic) that dealt with this topic turned up empty, it was decided that a comprehensive work was necessary to provide an opportunity for future comparative research.

Data were secured by interviewing the chief information officers (CIOs) or equivalent officers of the 11 largest corporations (by Icelandic standards). A checklist was used to focus the initial question session, and then the CIOs were permitted, and encouraged, to muse about their information technology (IT) operations. Insights were gathered on a set of problems, and some of those identified problems were quite unexpected.

Ten trends are identified consisting of aspects of: the difficulty of hiring qualified labor in‐country; establishment of strategy resides entirely within the IT management; security remains a serious concern; offshore subcontractors sometimes place their employees within Icelandic companies; mid‐ and upper‐level employees who can strategically develop networks and systems are in strong demand; use of information system (IS)/IT standards for information security is mostly voluntary; generally, the establishment of IS/IT strategy does not remain with board of directors; virtually all Icelandic corporations engage in, or have engaged in, outsourcing over the past five years (11 sub‐trends are identified); and the business school curricula is inadequate to the needs of Icelandic corporations with respect to IT demands.

Comparisons among Nordic and other small nations are not addressed. Virtually, every trend noted should be followed up with additional study. This paper is designed to establish baseline of current offspring activity in Iceland. It is by no means a definitive study.

Many research threads are identified and opened for future work. Academic programs can use this paper as motivation for modifications in existing programs and the creation of new one that better satisfies corporate needs.

Prior to this paper, there is no information available on the state of IT offshoring in the country of Iceland. A benchmark is now established against which future research can be measured.

The purpose of this paper is to examine critically both utopian and dystopian discourses of offshoring so that a more considered, nonetheless theoretically informed, view of the global offshore phenomenon can be formed.

Drawing upon some preliminary research on offshoring ventures from the UK to India, and the extant literature, the practice of business process outsourcing (BPO) via offshoring is explored and critiqued.

It is argued that neither dream nor nightmare is the adequate discursive metaphor to capture what we have discerned through our research on offshore outsourcing.

The primary contribution of this paper is that demonstrates that utopian and dystopian discourses fail to adequately explain the practice of offshore BPO and that in cultural, economical, ethical, and political terms, it is much more complex.

The purpose of this paper is to show that there is a wealth of academic literature that qualitatively examines the outsourcing and offshoring from a go/no go perspective. The paper examines the complex “where to outsource” question by applying a quantitative approach called Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

The authors examine a Fortune 500 company's real‐world decision about where to outsource and summarize the current selection process employed by the company. We then apply our AHP model to the company's decision and compare the results.

There are four major findings: the location selection decision is a component of the outsource supplier selection decision; the AHP model effectively manages the complexity of the decision making process, incorporating all decision criteria harmoniously; a method such as AHP, which is able to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative criteria into evaluations, would streamline the decision‐making process; and the AHP process allows firms to look at a portfolio of choices and determine which firms are basically equal in qualifications.

The research implies that: (AHP may be more applicable in these areas by providing a rigorous framework for assessment of qualitative and quantitative factors together; and AHP offers substantial flexibility to accommodate the variety and quantity of decision criteria set forth by the firm.

As firms are more active in pursuing opportunities in global markets, identifying the right offshoring location is critical. The selection process is complex, involving a set of qualitative and quantitative factors and requiring rigorous and careful analysis. Therefore, a scientific method that not only offers flexibility and simplicity, but also simultaneously accommodates a wide variety of decision criteria is invaluable. The research demonstrates that AHP provides these benefits and is an effective technique for analyzing the where‐to‐outsource decision.

The extensive literature review suggests that the majority of the existing works focus on analyzing the go/no‐go decision using a qualitative approach. This paper applies the AHP method to the “where to outsource” question to demonstrate one quantitative approach to this complex decision. Additionally, the paper provides a detailed description of how the AHP method is implemented in analyzing the decision by using a Fortune 500 company's data and information as an example.

Advances in information technology coupled with the need to build resilience against disruptions by pandemics like COVID-19 continue to emphasize offshoring services in the software industry. Service-level agreements (SLAs) have served as a key mechanism for safeguarding against risk in offshore service arrangements. Yet, variations in service cost and quality persist. This study aims to open up the blackbox linking SLAs to offshore project outcomes by examining (1) how the provisions in these contracts affect the ability of project teams – the work unit primarily in charge of producing the offshored service – to achieve their objectives and fulfill client requirements and (2) how differences in contextual factors shape the effects of these provisions.

The authors incorporate the role of organizational work practice differences to understand the challenges that 270 offshore project teams faced in coordinating and integrating technical and business domain knowledge across organizational boundaries in offshore arrangements. The examined offshore IT projects were managed by a leading software vendor in India and several of its US-based clients over a three-year period.

The authors demonstrate that organizational work practice differences represent a barrier to offshore project success, and that project team transition processes are an important mechanism for overcoming these barriers. Moreover, the authors find that transition processes represent key mediating mechanisms through which SLA provisions affect offshore project outcomes.

The study findings shed light on how SLAs shape software project teams' balance between activities aimed at meeting client needs and those aimed at containing costs.