Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to find out the knowledge requirements and its effect on both onsite and offshore project work division for development, re-engineering and maintenance projects in Indian outsourcing software industry in different phases of software development. Design/methodology/approach – This study employs an expert interview approach in Indian software industry to find out knowledge requirement for project execution and division of work between onsite and offshore locations. The requisite data were collected through expert interviews and direct observations. Findings – The study found that the development projects require higher level of domain, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge in comparison to re-engineering and maintenance projects. So there is a need of higher onsite presence in development projects. The maintenance work is taken up at the offshore location in a phase-wise manner. Research limitations/implications – The implication of the study is in the development of a broad framework of knowledge requirements and work division in on-shore and offshore locations for Indian software outsourcing projects. As the study is based on expert opinion in the context of India, it cannot be generalized for outsourcing scenarios elsewhere. Practical implications – The software project manager can use the findings to get more insight into the project and divide the software team between onsite and offshore location. Originality/value – The study is novel, as there is little attempt at finding the knowledge requirement to execute various kinds of business software development in outsourcing environment in the context of India.
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to make an attempt to find good values of onsite–offshore team strength; number of hours of communication between business users and onsite team and between onsite and offshore team to reduce cost and improve schedule for re-engineering projects in global software development environment. Design/methodology/approach – The system dynamics technique is used for simulation model construction and policy run experimentation. The experts from Indian software outsourcing industry were consulted for model construction, validation and analysis of policy run results in both co-located and distributed software development environment. Findings – The study results show that there is a drop in the overall team productivity in outsourcing environment by considering the offshore options. But the project cost can be reduced by employing the offshore team for coding and testing work only with minimal training for imparting business knowledge. The research results show that there is a potential to save project cost by being flexible in project schedule. Research limitations/implications – The study found that there could be substantial cost saving for re-engineering projects with a loss of project schedule when an appropriate onsite–offshore combination is used. The quality and productivity drop, however, were rather small for such combinations. The cost savings are high when re-engineering work is sent to offshore location entirely after completion of requirement analysis work at onsite location and providing training to offshore team in business knowledge The research findings show that there is potential to make large cost savings by being flexible in project schedule for re-engineering projects. Practical implications – The software project manager can use the model results to divide the software team between onsite and offshore location during various phases of software development in distributed environment. Originality/value – The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the team distribution between onsite and offshore location in global software development environment.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to find good values of onsite-offshore team strength; number of hours of communication between business users and onsite team and between onsite and offshore team so as to reduce project cost and improve schedule in a global software development (GSD) environment for software development project. Design/methodology/approach – This study employs system dynamics simulation approach to study software project characteristics in both co-located and distributed development environments. The authors consulted 14 experts from Indian software outsourcing industry during our model construction and validation. Findings – The study results show that there is a drop in overall team productivity in outsourcing environment by considering the offshore options. But the project cost can be reduced by employing the offshore team for coding and testing work only with minimal training for imparting business knowledge. The research results show that there is a potential to save project cost by being flexible in project schedule. Research limitations/implications – The implication of the study is that the project management team should be careful not to keep high percentage of manpower at offshore location in distributed software environment. A large offshore team can increase project cost and schedule due to higher training overhead, lower productivity and higher error proneness. In GSD, the management effort should be to keep requirement analysis and design work at onsite location and involves the offshore team in coding and testing work. Practical implications – The software project manager can use the model results to divide the software team between onsite and offshore location during various phases of software development in distributed environment. Originality/value – The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the team distribution between onsite and offshore location in GSD environment.
Purpose Digital transformation (DT) leverages digital technologies to change current processes and introduce new processes in any organisation’s business model, customer/user experience and operational processes (DT pillars). Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a significant role in achieving DT. As DT is touching each sphere of humanity, AI led DT is raising many fundamental questions. These questions raise concerns for the systems deployed, how they should behave, what risks they carry, the monitoring and evaluation control we have in hand, etc. These issues call for the need to integrate ethics in AI led DT. The purpose of this study is to develop an “AI led ethical digital transformation framework”. Design/methodology/approach Based on the literature survey, various existing business ethics decision-making models were synthesised. The authors mapped essential characteristics such as intensity and the individual, organisational and opportunity factors of ethics models with the proposed AI led ethical DT. The DT framework is evaluated using a thematic analysis of 23 expert interviews with relevant AI ethics personas from industry and society. The qualitative data of the interviews and opinion data has been analysed using MAXQDA software. Findings The authors have explored how AI can drive the ethical DT framework and have identified the core constituents of developing an AI led ethical DT framework. Backed by established ethical theories, the paper presents how DT pillars are related and sequenced to ethical factors. This research provides the potential to examine theoretically sequenced ethical factors with practical DT pillars. Originality/value The study establishes deduced and induced ethical value codes based on thematic analysis to develop guidelines for the pursuit of ethical DT. The authors identify four unique induced themes, namely, corporate social responsibility, perceived value, standard benchmarking and learning willingness. The comprehensive findings of this research, supported by a robust theoretical background, have substantial implications for academic research and corporate applicability. The proposed AI led ethical DT framework is unique and can be used for integrated social, technological and economic ethical research.
Purpose The paper aims to study manpower dynamics at offshore and onsite location for maintenance project, which are transferred to offshore location in a phase-wise manner. The purpose of the paper is to find good values of onsite–offshore team strength, the number of hours of communication between onsite and offshore teams for smooth transfer of software maintenance project to offshore location. Design/methodology/approach This study uses system dynamics simulation approach to study manpower allocation at onsite and offshore locations to transfer the maintenance work to offshore location in a gradual manner. The authors consulted 13 experts from Indian software outsourcing industry during the model construction and validation. Findings The simulation results show that the complexity of maintenance project has an insignificant effect on offshore migration. The maintenance work transfer should start with initial onsite team strength higher than that of required for ticket solving and project. The initial offshore team strength should be based on training capacity available at the onsite location. The higher attrition rate at an offshore is detrimental for offshore migration. Research limitations/implications The implication of the study is in the development of a broad framework of software maintenance work transfer to offshore locations for Indian software outsourcing projects. As the study is based on expert opinion in the context of India, it cannot be generalized for outsourcing scenarios elsewhere. Practical implications The software project manager can use the findings to get more insight into maintenance project offshore migration and divide the software team between onsite and offshore location. Originality/value The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the manpower composition at onsite and offshore locations for software maintenance project during the migration phase.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.