چشم انداز آموزش در برون سپاری خدمات پیشرفته

Based on longitudinal case studies of offshoring of advanced IT and engineering services from Danish firms to Indian firms, this paper explores organizational learning that occurs over time in both home and host firms and uses learning as a measure of the firm impact of advanced services offshoring. The findings are consistent with the theoretical view that advanced services offshoring must be understood as an antecedent for strategic business development and organizational change in both home and host firms. The study shows that when offshoring partnerships mature and firms gain experience, learning in both home and host firms evolves over time and differs in many cases from their initial objectives and expectations. In some of the Danish firms engaging in offshoring even ignites a process of strategic transformation. Both Danish and Indian firms use the input from their offshoring partnership to upgrade their organizations and business processes.

Firms' relocation of activities in their value chain across national borders (“offshoring”) and especially to emerging economies and developing countries is a marked trend of international business over the past decade1,2, perhaps even to the extent that offshoring becomes the defining feature of the global business opportunities in the new millennium. More advanced services, including various administrative and technical tasks such as engineering, IT, R&D and finance, are of particular interest in this regard because they are of a fundamentally different nature than the simple and standardized tasks that are usually performed by low-skilled workers in manufacturing and which are the type of tasks that have been subjected to offshoring for several decades (Andersen, 2006 and Maskell et al., 2007). This article addresses the topic of what impact advanced services offshoring has on the firms that engage in it. Based on longitudinal case studies of offshoring of advanced IT and engineering services from Danish firms to Indian firms, it explores strategic and systemic learning that occurs over time in both the home firms and in the host firms. The resulting learning in the home and host firms is therefore used as a measure of the firm impact of advanced services offshoring. The article contributes to the emergent strand of research in the international business literature on advanced services offshoring and it presents some findings of general value regarding the learning in home and host firms from advanced services offshoring. The overall intention is to contribute to theory-building on the impacts of the offshoring of advanced services. Based on the findings of the study, I argue that advanced services offshoring must be understood as an antecedent for strategic business development and organizational change in both home and host firms. The study shows that as offshoring partnerships mature and firms gain experience, the learning in firms evolves over time and differs in many cases from the initial objectives and expectations. The Indian firms use their Danish partners as bridgeheads in new markets while offshoring even ignites a process of strategic transformation in some of the Danish firms. Both Danish and Indian firms use the input from their offshoring partnership to upgrade their organizations and business processes. The article is structured as follows: 2 and 3 present the two strands of literature that form the theoretical base of the study, namely the literature on offshoring and selected works from the organizational learning and knowledge literature, including the research design for, first, within-case analysis and, second, between-case analysis. The methodology is outlined in Section 4. Section 5 presents the findings of the case studies using the concepts of, respectively, strategic learning and systemic learning (Child et al., 2005) as the structuring tool. Some limitations of the study are described before the between-case analysis in the Discussion section and the final Conclusion section.

This study contributes to the emerging literature on offshoring of advanced services by enhancing the understanding of the learning effects in developed country firms and developing country firms. The findings of the study are consistent with the view expressed in the hypothesis that advanced services offshoring is not hollowing-out offshoring firms but instead an opportunity for strategic business development and organizational change: When offshoring partnerships mature and firms gain experience, the learning effects in both home and host firms evolve over time and differ in many cases from their initial objectives and expectations. The Danish firms all launch offshoring operations to India primarily to get access to qualified staff. During the first year of offshoring operations, however, significant learning and change occur in the Danish firms' approach to offshoring and the strategic motives are expanded and include now other motives than merely the resource-seeking motive. In two Danish firms the experience even ignites a process of strategic transformation in the firms. Moreover, the experience gained sets in motion a range of changes at the systemic level as firms change and adapt their organizations to better exploit the advantages of offshoring. These incidents of strategic and systemic learning indicate that the Danish firm match the type of “fundamental transformation” offered by Lewin and Peeters (2006), where firms discover “that offshoring is not so much about taking out costs as it is about enabling them to experiment with radically new ways of doing business” (Lewin and Peeters, 2006, p. 235). For the Indian firms, the change over time is less dramatic but the partnerships with Danish firms still entail a considerable amount of strategic learning effects that influence the business development of the firms. The Indian firms use their Danish clients to establish bridgeheads in new markets (Denmark, Scandinavia, Europe) and to enhance their capabilities in various technology and business domains. Also at the systemic level, a number of learning effects and organizational changes occur in the Indian firms. The study shows that even large Indian firms can learn from partnerships with the comparatively small Danish firms. At a general level, this indicates the potentials for upgrading effects in developing country firms from collaboration with developed country firms. For managers it is important to note that advanced services offshoring is not just about an exchange of services. Rather, for both home and host firms it is about exploring the learning potentials and use these for business and organizational development.