Improving Software Productivity
Computer
The interdisciplinary study of coordination
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
The role of knowledge in software development
Communications of the ACM
The role of software processes and communication in offshore software development
Communications of the ACM - Supporting community and building social capital
Outsourcing Application Software: A Knowledge Management Perspective
HICSS '98 Proceedings of the Thirty-First Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-Volume 6 - Volume 6
Evaluating Offshore IT Outsourcing in India: Supplier and Customer Scenarios
HICSS '03 Proceedings of the 36th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'03) - Track 8 - Volume 8
Portfolios of Control in Outsourced Software Development Projects
Information Systems Research
Contracts in Offshore Software Development: An Empirical Analysis
Management Science
Managing cross-cultural issues in global software outsourcing
Communications of the ACM - Human-computer etiquette
Software Engineering (7th Edition)
Software Engineering (7th Edition)
Information systems outsourcing: a survey and analysis of the literature
ACM SIGMIS Database
Project Management Capabilities: Key to Application Development Offshore Outsourcing
HICSS '06 Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - Volume 08
The effect of service quality and partnership on the outsourcing of information systems functions
Journal of Management Information Systems
Journal of Management Information Systems - Special section: Strategic and competitive information systems
Procedural coordination and offshored software tasks: Lessons from two case studies
Information and Management
Research NoteInformation Technology, Contract Completeness, and Buyer-Supplier Relationships
Information Systems Research
Human-Computer Interaction
A review of the IT outsourcing literature: Insights for practice
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
The strategic value of IT insourcing: An IT-enabled business process perspective
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Intercultural Collaboration
Client strategies in vendor transition: A threat balancing perspective
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Test strategies in distributed software development environments
Computers in Industry
Journal of Global Information Management
REFSQ'13 Proceedings of the 19th international conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality
Inter-sourcing: alternative IT sourcing solutions using student interns
Proceedings of the 2013 annual conference on Computers and people research
Software quality across borders: Three case studies on company internal alignment
Information and Software Technology
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Knowledge based transactions and decision framing in Information Technology Outsourcing
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Cost escalation in information technology outsourcing: A moderated mediation study
Decision Support Systems
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Gaining economic benefits from substantially lower labor costs has been reported as a major reason for offshoring labor-intensive information systems services to low-wage countries. However, if wage differences are so high, why is there such a high level of variation in the economic success between offshored IS projects? This study argues that offshore outsourcing involves a number of extra costs for the client organization that account for the economic failure of offshore projects. The objective is to disaggregate these extra costs into their constituent parts and to explain why they differ between offshored software projects. The focus is on software development and maintenance projects that are offshored to Indian vendors. A theoretical framework is developed a priori based on transaction cost economics (TCE) and the knowledge-based view of the firm, complemented by factors that acknowledge the specific offshore context. The framework is empirically explored using a multiple case study design including six offshored software projects in a large German financial service institution. The results of our analysis indicate that the client incurs post- contractual extra costs for four types of activities: (1) requirements specification and design, (2) knowledge transfer, (3) control, and (4) coordination. In projects that require a high level of client-specific knowledge about idiosyncratic business processes and software systems, these extra costs were found to be substantially higher than in projects where more general knowledge was needed. Notably, these costs most often arose independently from the threat of opportunistic behavior, challenging the predominant TCE logic of market failure. Rather, the client extra costs were particularly high in client-specific projects because the effort for managing the consequences of the knowledge asymmetries between client and vendor was particularly high in these projects. Prior experiences of the vendor with related client projects were found to reduce the level of extra costs but could not fully offset the increase in extra costs in highly client-specific projects. Moreover, cultural and geographic distance between client and vendor as well as personnel turnover were found to increase client extra costs. Slight evidence was found, however, that the cost-increasing impact of these factors was also leveraged in projects with a high level of required client-specific knowledge (moderator effect).