Search results

The purpose of this paper is to contribute towards development of a management framework for offshore business process outsourcing (BPO).

This paper utilises longitudinal case studies to identify success factors in managing offshore BPO via the captive model (i.e. wholly‐owned subsidiary).

Success in offshore BPO is based on a combination of cost savings, technical service quality and strategic issues, is specific to business context and will change over time. Choice of engagement model (e.g. captive operation or arms‐length contracting) is an important success factor. Advantages of captive centers arise from higher levels of relationship quality, trust and collaboration effectiveness.

This paper focuses on two global companies in two industry sectors (airlines and telecommunications), and both have adopted one particular BPO model (i.e. captive operation).

The paper contributes to scarce literature on offshore captive BPO operations, the most common but also least researched engagement model. The findings have practical implications for managers designing offshore BPO strategy.

Despite many efforts within organizations toward business process orientation (BPO), research on real-world experiences remains in its infancy. The purpose of this paper is to redress the existing knowledge gap by analyzing a Swedish public housing company that has made notable effects regarding BPO and to explore lessons learned from the BPO journey (from 1998 to 2013).

The point of departure is principles in the BPO foundation, principles of successful BPM and effects in empirically based literature. The reconstruction of the narrative case study describes milestones and critical junctions, as well as effects based on quantitative and qualitative data.

Effects in BPO are demonstrated in terms of higher customer satisfaction, increased innovative ability, improved operational performance, higher employee satisfaction and, as a result of these, increased profitability. Theoretical constructs with implications for the theory building on BPO are suggested in a three-layer management framework – with capabilities and abilities emerging from the case study used as an illustrative example.

Lessons are learned regarding critical practices related to advancement in BPO. A strategy-building process based on eight design propositions is suggested to define the pre-conditions for BPO in an organization.

This is the first longitudinal case study to provide a comprehensive view and detailed insights of a BPO journey and top management performance toward a business process-oriented organization. Practitioners and BPM community get valuable insights into how the temporality and the context shape the BPO maturity process in terms of new organizational structure and roles during the journey.

Business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in India is progressing with an unparalleled velocity. Although, much research has taken place time and again elaborating on attrition, which is a menace to this industry, not much of work has been done on retention. The present study aims to explore the dimensions of retention in a comprehensive manner. The paper identifies the main factors that lead to retention, compares these dimensions across various demographic characteristics and develops a regression model to find out the contribution of the factors to the long term sustenance of employees in a BPO.

A questionnaire was completed by 500 BPO employees located in the National Capital region of India. It measured their perception towards the importance of factors that are responsible for their sustenance in the organization. Data was analyzed using tests like factor analysis, descriptive stats, correlation and regression.

Four major dimensions of retention were extracted. Of the four job-related dimensions and five personal characteristics, intrinsic motivation factor, employee involvement factor, age and education are the primary determinants of employee retention. It was also found that there is a difference in perception of BPO employees towards the importance of these job-related retention dimensions.

Due to selection of only a few facets of job characteristics, and limited geographical area of data collection, generalization of the study findings is limited. Future replication studies with more job characteristics and wider geographical selection in other related subject areas are also recommended.

Research findings will contribute to the body of knowledge in the BPO literature on employee retention programs and educate BPO employers on the organizational benefits associated with loyal, committed workers. Study implications will contribute towards industry's continual pursuit for growth, prosperity and profitability.

The present study explores novel dimensions of employee retention and makes a major contribution to the relative influence of job and personal characteristics in the BPO industry.

Taking an evidence from social exchange theory, this research examines the mediating role of affective commitment in the correlation between internal branding, employee engagement and job satisfaction. The moderating role of work environment on the link between internal branding and affective commitment is also studied in this research.

The data were collected by using well-structured research measures from 215 employees working in the BPO sector of India (Punjab and Chandigarh). The hypotheses were developed, and the conceptual model was validated by applying structural equation modeling. The data were analyzed by using two statistical packages, namely SPSS and AMOS.

The findings suggest that internal branding has a significant positive relationship with employee engagement, job satisfaction and affective commitment. The mediating effect of affective commitment on the relationship between internal branding and employee engagement was full, whereas on the relationship between internal branding and job satisfaction, it was partial. Work environment also moderated the relationship of internal branding with affective commitment.

The current study offers significant lessons to management thinkers, human resource (HR), organizational branding and marketing manager. However, BPO sector should be aware about the critical role played by internal branding to enhance affective commitment, employee engagement and job satisfaction of the employees. The role of affective commitment is also taken into account to study the effect of internal branding on employee engagement and employee's job satisfaction. For itself, internal branding cannot be considered as in isolation and is doubtful to be efficacious if the work environment is not encouraging to an employee as well as to the brand values.

This study offers significant lessons to management thinkers, HR, organizational branding and marketing manager. However, BPO sector should be aware about the critical role played by internal branding to enhance employee engagement, job satisfaction and affective commitment of the employees. An important role of affective commitment is also taken into account to study the effect of internal branding on employee engagement and employee's job satisfaction. For itself, internal branding cannot be considered as in isolation and is doubtful to be efficacious if employees are not provided an encouraging work environment.

Existing researches on internal branding are theoretical in nature and overlook the empirical impact of internal branding on employee engagement, job satisfaction and affective commitment from the BPO employees' perspective. The study also offers an empirical examination of potential mediator and moderator for internal branding.

This research approaches human resource management (HRM) as a service and aims to develop and test a process for improving perceived HRM service quality.

A three-step process was developed by incorporating concepts and tools from service design approach. Based on the literature, it was hypothesized that applying this process could improve perception of HRM service quality, perceived HRM service value, level of leader–member exchanges along with perceived organizational support, role clarity and role ambiguity. A case study was conducted and these variables were measured and compared, before and after testing the process for a test group and a control group within an organization.

The main findings suggest the effectiveness of the presented process in improving the perceived HRM service quality and social exchanges (in terms of perceived organizational support and leader–member exchanges), while reducing role conflict and role ambiguity in employees and supervisors.

In a general sense, the obtained result implies that leveraging holistic and collaborative service design tools and concepts in (re)designing internal services, such as HRM, could improve perception of quality in organizational services, which in turn may lead to several important benefits for organizations, particularly in terms of HRM as per the context of this study.

This paper demonstrates development of an employee-centered method by borrowing from service design concepts and tools, to improve the perception of HRM service quality.

The ten principles of good business process management (BPM) support organizations in planning and scoping the organizations' BPM approach. Derived from literature and expert panels, the principles received much attention both in research and practice. This article develops a measurement instrument to operationalize the principles and to support organizations in measuring the degree to which they incorporate the principles in their BPM approach, that way advancing their BPM capabilities.

The authors applied the scale-development methodology, because this methodology is an established approach consisting of various techniques to develop measurement instruments. First, the authors used established techniques to develop such an instrument. Then, the authors assessed the validity and reliability of the developed instrument through a field survey with 345 participants.

The authors developed a valid and reliable measurement instrument for the ten principles of good BPM. The field survey's results reveal that the measurement instrument meets all required methodological standards. The instrument, thus, can be applied to help process owners and managers to evaluate their BPM approach and plan future actions based on potential shortcomings. Future research can both use and further develop the instrument, which serves as a conceptualization of the principles.

This study is the first to provide a measurement instrument for assessing an organizations' BPM practice against the ten principles of good BPM, which have become established as a much-considered and widely-used source of reference both in academia and practice. The authors also discuss how the instrument compares to and distinguishes from existing approaches to qualify BPM approaches, thus communicating the significance of the instrument.

To examine the development of research into the relationship between business process outsourcing (BPO) and innovation, a bibliometric methodology utilizing quantitative analytical methodologies was used. With the aid of a visualization analysis of scientific publications, this study also assessed the state of BPO and innovation practices.

Using the Web of Science database, articles on BPO and innovation that published between 1992 and 2022 were retrieved. Records that had been extracted were examined in terms of publication year, nation, journal, subject area, authors and affiliations with organizations. The research on acupuncture for pain relief was visualized using the VOSviewer application.

An analysis of 219 original and review papers found that during the past 30 years, the overall number of publications has fluctuated constantly. The London University, the Copenhagen Business School and the London School of Economics were the institutions that produced the most articles in this topic. The three main categories of research that emerged from a network analysis based on the co-occurrence of keywords are innovation, outsourcing and performance.

A BP-innovation model must be created, and BPO must go beyond operational duties to incorporate management-wide shared strategic decisions in order to ensure improved performance of the firms. BPO enables a company's management to share knowledge and expertise about the strategic difficulties of outsourcing. A variety of technological and non-technological resources must also be considered when integrating an information technology (IT) infrastructure into BPO decisions in order to achieve greater performance.

Validity of the paper can be justified by it contribution to the existing knowledge. First, linking BPO and innovation – by integrating the arguments of various academics, the study unifies the disparate components and contentious discussions in the relationship between BPO and innovation. Second, this study highlights a research trend, significant studies, relevant terms and concepts in the real world. Third, the study provides future researchers with a tip for statistically analyzing BPO, particularly in light of innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss business processes as building‐blocks of organisational capabilities and outsourcing of business processes as a viable management approach to building strategic organisational capabilities.

The paper develops a conceptual framework based on “strategic partnering” to successfully implement “global sourcing” of organisational capabilities and validates this framework using multiple case studies research.

The paper identifies business process management, relationship management and the outsourcing value propositions as the key dimensions for business process outsourcing (BPO) success.

The paper is based on case studies of seven European clients and ten Indian service providers of BPO services. A larger survey of BPO clients and service providers may further strengthen the proposed framework and make the findings more conclusive.

The proposed framework helps both the BPO client and the service provider organisations in understanding the critical role of relationship management in realising the intended BPO service outcomes. It also helps the BPO clients and the service providers to understand the risk and business value implications of BPO value proposition.

The paper addresses a dearth of literature on BPO service provision and establishes the need for dyadic study of BPO services from both the client and the service provider perspective simultaneously for understanding the dynamics of this emerging service sector.

The goal of this research is first to investigate the outsourcing needs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in each of the following HR sub‐processes: recruiting, training, HR administration, payroll, and benefit processes. Then, the outsourcing needs are analyzed against the characteristics of the companies such as company size, operating environment, culture and information technology maturity. Lastly, integrated business process outsourcing (BPO) service models are developed according to the characteristics of the company.

To fulfil the objective of this research, the questionnaire is used to assess the outsourcing needs of the companies. The data collected by questionnaire are analyzed against the characteristics of the companies. Then integrated BPO service models are developed based on the analysis of the questionnaire data and the interviews with HR managers. This study used both quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

This study suggests BPO service industry with two different service models: partially integrated model where e‐recruiting and e‐learning are integrated and fully integrated model where all of the HR‐subprocesses are integrated.

As BPO is expected to be booming in the next few years, this study helps BPO service industry to better serve SMEs in the area of human resource management.

The purpose of this paper is first, to investigate the effective governance structure in early stage of offshore business process outsourcing (BPO), especially in the case where service provider's language is different from client's language, and second, to explore some of the conditions at the adoption of BPO that are likely to influence the shape of the governance structure.

Ground theory building methodology that builds theory in a grounded and inductive fashion is used for this study. First, a genetic framework to analyze offshore BPO governance structure is derived from extant literature. Then, the framework is applied to an exploratory case analysis to explore an effective form of the governance mechanism.

The hybrid governance structure consists of inter‐organizational coordination mechanisms, inter‐organizational systems and social control. Companies that wish to offshore their business process should select the service providers that can facilitate setting up such hybrid governance structure.

As offshore BPO is expected to be booming in the next few years, this study helps both academics and practitioners to understand the effective governance structure of offshore BPO.