Global IT Outsourcing: Software Development across Borders

by Sundeep Sahay , Brian Nicholson , S. Krishna

• ISBN13: 9780521816045
• ISBN10: 0521816041
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book offers key insights into how to manage software development across international boundaries. It is based on a series of case studies looking at the relationships between firms from North America, the UK, Japan and Korea with Indian software houses. In these case studies, which have typically been compiled over a 3-4 year timespan, the authors analyze the multi-faceted challenges encountered in managing these Global Software Alliances (GSAs). These challenges range from the conflicts that managers face when dealing with distance, to the tensions of transferring knowledge across time and space, to issues in trying to establish universal standards in a context of constant change, and the problems of identity that developers and clients experience in having to deal with different organizations and countries. Throughout the book, the authors draw on their extensive research and experience to offer constructive advice on how to manage GSAs more effectively.

Table of Contents

1. Introducing the phenomenon of Global Software Work

2. Globalization and Global Software Work

3. Globtel's GSA program In India

4. The Globtel-Witech relationship: a 'standardization' perspective

5. Global Software Work: an identity perspective

6. The Globtel-MCI relationship: the dialectics of space and place

7. Managing the knowledge transfer process: the case of Sierra and its Indian subsidiary

8. The case of Gowing and Eron GSA: power and control

9. Cross cultural communication challenges: GSAs between Japanese and Indian firms

10. Reflections and synthesis on theoretical insights

11. Managerial implications.