دریایی برون سپاری خدمات حرفه ای: چشم انداز اقتصاد هزینه معامله

This research utilizes the framework of transaction cost economics (TCE) to develop an understanding of how firms manage the costs and risks of offshore outsourcing of professional services. This research examines the perspectives of eight organizations through interviews with 10 high-ranking supply management executives. The paper first explores the rationale for offshore outsourcing among the organizations studied. Using the tenants of TCE, this paper postulates that fixed costs of establishing the relationship dominate the variable costs of day-to-day transactions, and that organizations will not offshore outsource areas where there is high perceived degree of unmanageable risk. The paper expands on themes provided by TCE and offers some lessons learned, and guidelines for managing and controlling offshore outsourced services relationships.

Outsourcing provides a potential path to price reductions and increased flexibility, allowing firms to convert fixed costs into variable expenses, and increase their economies of scope. Studies indicate that short-term price savings continues to be a predominant reason for both offshore and domestic outsourcing (Corbett, 2005 and Doig et al., 2001). Yet the ramifications of outsourcing go well beyond immediate price reduction. Outsourcing has implications for day-to-day management and performance, as well as strategic implications. Outsourcing decisions clearly affect a firm's cost structures, but may also affect the long-term competitive situation and alter the nature of risks that the firm must manage. Offshore outsourcing presents many opportunities that are not available domestically. For example, due to low Indian labor rates, an airline was able to offshore outsource its accounts payable auditing and recover $75 million in delinquent accounts that would not have been cost-beneficial to pursue domestically (Farrell, 2004). Outsourcing can also help a company get better, more state of the art services than it could afford internally. This is a commonly stated reason for outsourcing information technology (McDougall, 2004). Clearly, there is much more to outsourcing than simply saving money. Offshore outsourcing creates both new opportunities and often unrecognized hazards, which may limit a firm's prospects. The long-term costs of these unanticipated consequences can greatly overshadow the potential cost savings. As such, careful consideration should be given to outsourcing decisions including all of the potential long-term consequences. It is no wonder that there has been a call for more research on offshore outsourcing of services (Roth and Menor, 2003). The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it explores why firms state that they choose to offshore outsource professional services. The second issue, and primary focus of the paper, is to use the framework of transaction cost economics to develop an understanding of how firms are managing the costs and the risks of offshore outsourcing professional services. Professional services offshore outsourcing is the focus because of its rapid growth and the expectation that this trend will continue (Apte et al., 1995, Bardhan and Kroll, 2003, Bardhan and Kroll, 2006 and Roth and Menor, 2003). Professional services require unique skills and independent work effort to satisfy the organization's temporary or ongoing needs. Included are areas such as information technology, advertising, customer service, accounting and payroll. Using transaction cost economics (TCE) as the framework, it is postulated that organizations will choose the business alternative that yields the lowest total cost of running their operations. TCE provides a rich framework beyond cost, also hypothesizing that organizations will not offshore outsource areas where there is high potential risk of supplier opportunism. TCE proposes that supplier opportunism is highest when the buying firm cannot specify or does not know what it wants, and when the buying firm cannot accurately assess whether the supplier is actually keeping its commitments. The perspectives of eight organizations were explored through interviews with 10 high-ranking supply management executives who were intimately involved in the selection, relationship execution and on-going management of offshored and outsourced professional services suppliers. The themes provided by TCE are expanded upon and some lessons learned are presented, along with guidelines for effectively managing and controlling offshore outsourced services relationships.

This research is limited by the perspective of high- ranking supply management professional. Even high- ranking supply management personnel often do not have the final say in the decision to offshore outsource professional services. The perspective of supply managers with direct responsibility for offshored suppliers may provide a different perspective. It would also be beneficial to gain the perspectives of general managers or other key decision makers involved in outsourcing services. However, the focus of this research is on the ongoing management, success, and failure of offshore outsourced relationships. In that regard, supply management is often the most qualified party to comment, because they generally have a high degree of involvement and management responsibility for offshore outsourced professional services relation- ships. An additional limitation of this study is that it focused only on offshore outsourcing, without simulta- neously comparing it to in-house offshoring or domestic outsourcing. While the participants indicated that the savings are greater and the risks higher with outsourced offshoring, it would be interesting to compare the specific adaptive behaviors used in domestic versus offshore outsourcing, and offshoring versus outsourced offshoring. The adaptive risk behaviors demonstrated by the firms studied indicates that there is much learning and change that occurs in the process of outsourcing services. There is substantial opportunity for future research into these adaptive behavior patterns as well as the implications of adaptive behavior for the applic- ability of TCE to services outsourcing. Using a knowledge-based theoretical lens to view services may also be relevant here. The knowledge-based view has been considered as a lens for the creation of services ( Grant, 1996; Linderman et al., 2004; Nonaka, 1994; Ordonez de Pablos, 2004; Oliveira et al., 2003 ), as well as for determining the segregation of tasks between the buying and supplying firms ( Takeishi, 2001, 2002 ). This view may also apply to services offshore outsourcing in a variety of ways. For example, the knowledge and skills associated with the complex activity of determin- ing which services to offshore outsource, where, to whom and how to structure the relationship may be an important source of competitive advantage that should be properly managed within the firm. This may be oneof those learn-by-doing skills identified by Williamson and Ouchi (1981) that the firm should protect, just like any type of intellectual property. Similarly, the skills associated with managing offshore outsourced services may be an important learned asset. The case studies indicate that there is much learning in this arena. The learning also seems to apply in terms of the manner in which organizations learn to manage and reduce the risks of offshore services outsourcing. One of the issues here is how much of this learning is tacit versus explicit knowledge. As Grant (1996) found, it is not the loss or gain of explicit knowledge that creates difficult competitive issues for the firm, it is the loss of tacit knowledge. Likewise, Takeishi (2002) notes that the effective management of knowledge by the manufacturing firm in its relationships with its suppliers may be a source of competitive advantage. Taking this one step farther, the organizations that offshore outsource these professional services must ask themselves: are we outsourcing tacit knowledge, which is difficult to recreate and transfer, or arewe outsourcing explicit knowledge, or capacity? Initially, all the organizations studied believed they were doing the latter. As the relationship progressed, it became clear that some were really outsourcing the former, paying their suppliers to become more powerful and compe- titive, often at their own expense. Clearly, there are many interesting and exciting areas of research opportunity in the offshore outsourcing of professional services. This research contains a broad perspective of offshore outsourcing. Future research is needed that takes a more in-depth look at this phenomenon. This globalization of professional ser- vices is as a developing phenomenon not a passing trend. Organizations need to be successful with their offshoring efforts, both reducing costs and safeguarding the company from risk. Organizational leaders have both the possibility and the desire to learn and gain experience in offshore outsourcing. Researchers have the opportunity to be at the forefront of this developing phenomenon and allowing their insights and experience to help make the transition to a global services economy a successful one.