Business-Related Determinants of Offshoring Intensity

Abstract

Some researchers view information systems (IS) offshoring as extension of onshore IS outsourcing. However, others have the opinion that IS offshoring has its unique characteristics because of which, we cannot extend research made in onshore IS outsourcing without testing its applicability to the offshore context. This tension motivates our research to examine whether determinants of IS offshoring are indeed the same as determinants of onshore IS outsourcing? We examine the role of some firm level determinants of offshoring intensity. The four business related determinants that we analyze in this study are: business size, business cost, business financial leverage, and business performance. Results indicate a significant relationship between business size and offshoring intensity, and also between business financial leverage and offshoring intensity. Based on the results, we analyze similarities and differences between traditional onshore IS outsourcing and IS offshoring. Implications and contributions arising out of this study are also discussed.

Onshore to Near-Shore Outsourcing Transitions: Unpacking Tensions

“…This reduced biasness towards specific stakeholder groups and provided triangulation and saturation of themes. Furthermore, other researchers have considered secondary data to be more objective than perception-based data collected through Interviews or Surveys [15]. Qualitative studies are often criticized for the perceived difficulties in replicating them since identical circumstances may not be recreated [16].…”

“…The significance of using secondary data is that it is easily reproducible which enable other researchers to extend the original work [15] or possibly replicate the study independently. Although most of the analysis was done by the main researcher, a considerable amount of time was spent during this exercise.…”

Continuous Transition in Outsourcing: A Case Study

“…Data dumps like this provide an alternate source of data for research. Some researchers even prefer this type of data over surveys or interviews [13]. This data comprised periodic reports from external consulting companies PwC, Deloitte, Equinox, Maven, IQANZ and Extrinsic covering various time periods.…”

“…Verner & Abdullah [12] suggests that secondary data can be valuable for carrying out case studies if there is enough information in the data to answer research questions. However, there is no control by the researcher over the collection of data, and a researcher is constrained by the nature of available data [13]. It can also take a long time to become familiar with such data.…”