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Riding for a Fall in Outsourced ISD: Knowledge Transfer Challenges Between the Onshore Vendor and the Offshored Unit

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Achieving Success and Innovation in Global Sourcing: Perspectives and Practices (Global Sourcing 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 236))

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Abstract

Contemporary information systems development (ISD) is often conducted in a multi-stakeholder network where parts of the development are offshored. This entails several risks and challenges as inter-organizational boundaries get blurred and relationships become complex. Knowledge transfer (KT) is especially difficult; however, it has not been thoroughly studied from the network’s perspective. This interpretive case study investigated why KT between onshore vendor and offshored unit is difficult in the ISD network. Numerous KT challenges were found and organized into four categories. In addition, some root causes were identified, including the nature of knowledge to be transferred, inappropriate systems development methods, the number of middlemen, and political issues. The study contributes to research by confirming insights from the literature on KT and also providing novel issues unique to a networked perspective. For practitioners, this study shows some potential issues to be considered when planning how to organize the outsourcing or offshoring of their systems development.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.itnews.com.au/News/385123,indian-outsourcing-giant-hits-trouble.aspx

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Acknowledgement

This study was funded by the Academy of Finland grant #259831. We also thank the reviewers and discussants at Global Sourcing Workshop 2015 for their constructive comments and feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Management and Logistics, Tampere University of Technology, PO Box 541, 33101, Tampere, Finland

    Aki Alanne & Samuli Pekkola

Authors
  1. Aki Alanne
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  2. Samuli Pekkola
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Correspondence to Samuli Pekkola .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Economics, Loughborough Univ, Loughborough, Loughborough, United Kingdom

    Ilan Oshri

  2. Aston University, Aston Business School, Birmingham, United Kingdom

    Julia Kotlarsky

  3. London School of Economics, London, United Kingdom

    Leslie P. Willcocks

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Alanne, A., Pekkola, S. (2015). Riding for a Fall in Outsourced ISD: Knowledge Transfer Challenges Between the Onshore Vendor and the Offshored Unit. In: Oshri, I., Kotlarsky, J., Willcocks, L. (eds) Achieving Success and Innovation in Global Sourcing: Perspectives and Practices. Global Sourcing 2015. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 236. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26739-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26739-5_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26738-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26739-5

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