A systems perspective on offshoring strategy and motivational drivers amongst onshore and offshore employees

Angelika Zimmermann; M. N. Ravishankar

doi:10.1016/j.jwb.2016.01.005

A systems perspective on offshoring strategy and motivational drivers amongst onshore and offshore employees

Angelika Zimmermann^*
, M. N. Ravishankar^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

20 Citations (Scopus)

95 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Extant research tends to view firm level offshoring strategies and micro level motivational drivers as self-contained units of analysis. By contrast, this paper draws on an inductive study of two global service firms to demonstrate how the implementation and success of an advanced task offshoring strategy depends on certain systemic interdependencies between (a) the strategy, (b) onshore employees’ motivation to transfer advanced tasks and (c) offshore employees’ motivation to spend effort on their tasks and stay with the firm. We analyse how these three elements interact and produce feedback loops to create an ‘offshoring system’. Extrapolating from our findings, we propose how the offshoring system is likely to develop within the external constraints set by the attainable expertise of offshore employees and by client demands.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	548-567
Journal	Journal of World Business
Volume	51
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2016.01.005
Publication status	Published - 07 Jun 2016
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The research presented in this paper was funded by a British Academy grant. We would like to thank Armin Heinzl, Oliver Krancher, Jens Dibbern, and the four anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Inc.

Keywords

Feedback loop
Motivation
Offshoring
Outsourcing
Spiral
System

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Business and International Management
Finance
Marketing

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jwb.2016.01.005Licence: Unspecified

A systems perspective on offshoring strategy and motivational drivers amongst onshore and offshore employees
Copyright 2016 Elsevier. This manuscript is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits distribution and reproduction for non-commercial purposes, provided the author and source are cited.
Accepted author manuscript, 343 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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title = "A systems perspective on offshoring strategy and motivational drivers amongst onshore and offshore employees",

abstract = "Extant research tends to view firm level offshoring strategies and micro level motivational drivers as self-contained units of analysis. By contrast, this paper draws on an inductive study of two global service firms to demonstrate how the implementation and success of an advanced task offshoring strategy depends on certain systemic interdependencies between (a) the strategy, (b) onshore employees{\textquoteright} motivation to transfer advanced tasks and (c) offshore employees{\textquoteright} motivation to spend effort on their tasks and stay with the firm. We analyse how these three elements interact and produce feedback loops to create an {\textquoteleft}offshoring system{\textquoteright}. Extrapolating from our findings, we propose how the offshoring system is likely to develop within the external constraints set by the attainable expertise of offshore employees and by client demands. ",

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AB - Extant research tends to view firm level offshoring strategies and micro level motivational drivers as self-contained units of analysis. By contrast, this paper draws on an inductive study of two global service firms to demonstrate how the implementation and success of an advanced task offshoring strategy depends on certain systemic interdependencies between (a) the strategy, (b) onshore employees’ motivation to transfer advanced tasks and (c) offshore employees’ motivation to spend effort on their tasks and stay with the firm. We analyse how these three elements interact and produce feedback loops to create an ‘offshoring system’. Extrapolating from our findings, we propose how the offshoring system is likely to develop within the external constraints set by the attainable expertise of offshore employees and by client demands.

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KW - Offshoring

KW - Outsourcing

KW - Spiral

KW - System

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A systems perspective on offshoring strategy and motivational drivers amongst onshore and offshore employees

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this