Our economy is going global. Open borders and the internet have created endless possibilities for companies to source products and services internationally. This phenomenon, outsourcing, is widely studied among large companies, usually referring to them offshoring parts of their operations to increase business and cost efficiency. However, thanks to platforms like Fiverr and UpWork, outsourcing has become accessible to anyone and plays a significant role also in startups. Using semi- structured interviews to draw on the experiences of nine entrepreneurs, we find that startups use outsourcing with different motivations than larger companies. Rather than cost reductions, compensating for skills that startups lack internally is the main reason for entrepreneurs to outsource. Increasing flexibility to react to the dynamic environment startups navigate in and the possibility to grow and scale quickly are also frequently mentioned drivers for outsourcing. Opposing the potential of outsourcing, most entrepreneurs see little to no risk associated with the process. Aside from the potential lack of quality of the deliverables, startups primarily fear the loss of intellectual property that could harm their competitive advantage. As this thesis shows that outsourcing within startups is fundamentally different from the traditional outsourcing of established firms, it recognizes entrepreneurial outsourcing as an individual field of research and defines it as “the concept of flexibly adjusting a startup’s access tocompetence, resources, and capacity according to rapid internal or external changes by sourcing products or services from external providers”.

U.S. manufacturing companies' offshoring of investments to China over the past 4 decades before 2017 has played a significant role in China's economic growth. However, as China's economy expands and the country's standard of living improves, U.S. manufacturing executives are required to take a refreshed look at current investment strategies to adjust for rising costs and a tighter regulatory environment. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore economic strategies that U.S. manufacturing leaders used to offshore effectively to China. The study included in-person interviews of 9 purposeful sampled manufacturing leaders, fluent in English, from 2 U.S. organizations with China operations headquartered in Shanghai. The conceptual framework for this study was the total quality management theory. Four themes emerged in the data from these interviews, on-site observations, and company documentation review, including: (a) movement of innovation closer to production in China; (b) increased localization of the legacy offshoring business; (c) enhancement of China-based cross-functional teams; and (d) incrementally investing to achieve production scale. These findings suggest that U.S. manufacturing leaders need to adapt to a changing and dynamic China market by focusing on local issues to maintain global competitiveness. The implications for positive social change include equipping manufacturing business leaders with information to address offshoring-related decisions more effectively. Additional social change benefits include the overall rise in international safety standards in China, resulting from offshoring investments and the training of manufacturing workers, which prepare them for more advanced roles in the workforce.

<p><p>The rising globalisation, supported by rapid technology innovations has changed our current business environment within the last years. As a result, especially SMEs have to cope with a higher pressure of maximising their efficiency and competitiveness in order to survive on the market. Nevertheless, many managers recognised the great potential of outsourcing to utilise the enormous benefits of external suppliers to solve this problem. For instance, it enables the SMEs to concentrate on their core capabilities combined with exploiting synergy affects of the supplier cooperation as costs savings, access to R&D knowledge etc. But the outsourcing dimension changed as well, due to the increased globalisation, companies are not hesitating anymore to step over their country boundaries and offshore to high promising emerging countries like China. However, offshoring cannot perform miracles, more it presents one of the most strategic and complex decisions affecting the whole company.</p><p>Based on these facts, this Master Thesis investigates how an SME should outsource to China. The basis of the outsourcing decision is examined to make the right strategic decision, which is illustrated with a developed model. More, the supplier selection and maintenance are explained, followed by the description of the facts which have to be considered when offshoring to China. Particularly due to the focus on offshoring to China, this thesis will further look into the affects of the Chinese culture on the companies’ networks. The research is based on a case study, which is further used to derive general conclusions for other SMEs.</p><p>The result of the investigation is that SMEs should decide which parts to outsource from a strategic point of view. Further to cope with the lack of resources and the Chinese cultural issues the cooperation with an intermediary is recommended.</p></p>

Purpose – The aim of this study is to explore how outsourcing affects developing countries. The effects are examined for Ghana and Vietnam, which have recently become attractive outsourcing locations. They are compared with China and India, both well known for their outsourcing sectors and their attractiveness as outsourcing locations.   Design/methodology/approach – In this research paper an exploratory method is applied. During the examination economic data provided by supranational organizations is used to measure the effects of outsourcing. Data is collected to match the requirements of the applied triangular model for measuring. Background for the data collection is the triangular model by Granger. Key figures for observation are Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), exports, and their correlations. Validity and reliability is ensured through cross examination of the model.   Findings – The effects of outsourcing vary a lot. All key figures rose in general during the observed 30 years, from 1981 till 2010. The correlations show that there are eventual relations of the figures, although direct relations each by each year are not found. The most remarkable finding is that FDI might indeed push the exports. Export rates are rising in the years after the investment is done. The relation of FDI and GDP show that there can be interrelations as well, but if the GDP is increased in higher rates than the FDI is done. An overall result of the examination is that Vietnam seems to rely heavily on outsourcing as they export almost ¾ of the fabrications whereas it is assumed that Ghana tries more on development and improvement of the whole economy.   Originality/value – This research paper looks at the often discussed phenomenon outsourcing by focussing on its economic effects by focussing on the effects for the developing countries Vietnam and Ghana. It provides the reader with new aspects to be considered in the surrounding of outsourcing. Further investigations are necessary to explore if the found can be generalised.

Modern organizations within IT-developing needs to be prepared to face challengesthat are not necessarily connected to the mere technological aspects of softwares.These challenges might lie within e. g. communication between stakeholders, userinvolvement, organizational regulations, the need for standards and maintainability ofthe products. This study is investigating the software development at one of thevarious IT-departments at Swedish bank Nordea, in order to point out the mostinteresting areas of improvement. Many different tools, standards, organizationalprocesses and methodologies are available to the developers, whereof some of themmight be inhibitory rather than enhancing the effectiveness. Nordea is also having anoffshoring-oriented strategy, having development resources located in India. Thediscussion is concerned with modern methodologies such as Scrum and other agiledevelopment concepts, and their use in a geographically dispersed context and withina non-agile organization.

The rising globalisation, supported by rapid technology innovations has changed our current business environment within the last years. As a result, especially SMEs have to cope with a higher pressure of maximising their efficiency and competitiveness in order to survive on the market. Nevertheless, many managers recognised the great potential of outsourcing to utilise the enormous benefits of external suppliers to solve this problem. For instance, it enables the SMEs to concentrate on their core capabilities combined with exploiting synergy affects of the supplier cooperation as costs savings, access to R&amp;D knowledge etc. But the outsourcing dimension changed as well, due to the increased globalisation, companies are not hesitating anymore to step over their country boundaries and offshore to high promising emerging countries like China. However, offshoring cannot perform miracles, more it presents one of the most strategic and complex decisions affecting the whole company. Based on these facts, this Master Thesis investigates how an SME should outsource to China. The basis of the outsourcing decision is examined to make the right strategic decision, which is illustrated with a developed model. More, the supplier selection and maintenance are explained, followed by the description of the facts which have to be considered when offshoring to China. Particularly due to the focus on offshoring to China, this thesis will further look into the affects of the Chinese culture on the companies’ networks. The research is based on a case study, which is further used to derive general conclusions for other SMEs. The result of the investigation is that SMEs should decide which parts to outsource from a strategic point of view. Further to cope with the lack of resources and the Chinese cultural issues the cooperation with an intermediary is recommended.

This thesis aims to describe and analyse how companies establish and maintain relationship quality when outsourcing offshore. In literature we have identified that companies who outsource offshore encounter difficulties with quality and costs. However most of the contracts are renewed even though they encounter these issues. The reason is because relationships are valued higher. In order to create a long-term successful offshore outsourcing, it is of essence for companies to have guidance in how to establish and maintain an effective and fruitful client-vendor relationship.   The identified research research gap we will address in this thesis is the is a lack of research on how to establish and maintain relationship quality in an offshore outsourcing relationship, in terms of exploring the topic from both the client and the vendor perspective.   In the literature review theories and previous research on offshore outsourcing overall is presented, as well as explains what successful and unsuccessful is. The literature review elaborates on relationship quality and social exchange theory in relation to offshore outsourcing. Furthermore, it goes into detail of the variables that are of the utmost interest to create relationship quality. These variables are trust, commitment and satisfaction.   In this study both the client’s and the vendor's perspective is illustrated and compared. This was possible by conducting qualitative interviews with both client and vendor. The interviewees all had several years experience of working with outsourcing to or from India. The empirical finding from these interviews were analysed with help from the theoretical framework. However during the interviews we identified that communication is significantly important when establishing and maintaining relationship. To achieve success in an offshore outsourcing project the communication between the client and the vendor should be trustworthy, transparent, honest and clear, also conflicts should be solved through this type of communication.

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Offshoring is a hot topic in the industrial and academic community over the last few years, evolving from a focus on manufacturing to product development and R&amp;D. Offshoring refers to the process of sourcing and coordinating tasks across national borders and can include both in-house and outsourced activities performed by a supplier. There is a lot of research guiding the decision of what, where and how to offshore, but research on how to implement offshoring strategies is rare. The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to the knowledge on how companies deal with offshoring in practice, relating to strategy, planning and routines. It discusses what type of capabilities that is needed to gain the benefits of offshoring implementations. The research builds on case studies from two multinational companies offshoring product development from Sweden to captive and offshore development centres in India and China through a series of interviews, review of business documentation and other types of active engagements over time. This research highlights how the development and implementation of offshoring can be better understood by focusing on the middle management in the organization and how they relate to the top management directives when implementing an offshoring strategy.  The thesis contributes to existing theory by explaining offshoring as a process, situated in a certain context and time. It defines key routines and capabilities needed to facilitate offshoring of complex product systems. Including context, timing and sequence when analysing offshoring help explain why some organizations fail to implement offshoring initiatives. The companies had an iterative learning process to deal with offshoring, and inclusion of all levels in an organization was highlighted as a key success factor for the implementation of offshoring. The results extend current understanding of offshoring of complex products to Asia and provide useful guidelines for managers on the key issues they need to consider. / Effective outsourcing/offshoring of research, development and engineering

This thesis examines the impact of governance process development on engagements between onshore and offshore subsidiaries of multinational IT services organisations. Offshoring is a significant global phenomenon. Over the last decade, there has been substantial growth in the number of organisations setting up ‘captive’ (wholly owned subsidiaries) centres in offshore locations. The desired benefits of greater coordination, leveraging and sharing of knowledge have, in many instances, failed to materialise for these IT services organisations. These failures arise from a variety of causes including a lack of intra-organisational processes to coordinate and manage work, weak alignment between the parent organisation’s strategic objectives and those of the subsidiary, and the inability to navigate cross-organisational and cultural barriers. This thesis comprises three interrelated projects. The first established that organisations develop offshore subsidiaries in order to obtain one or more of a number of complex and interrelated set of strategic objectives. The second project, through the use of grounded theory, demonstrates that within one IT services organisation, imposed governance processes do not facilitate communication and engagement between the onshore and offshore subsidiaries. Cross-cultural and organisational differences inhibited the engagement between the subsidiaries, thus contributing to the failure to achieve the desired benefits of offshoring. Organisations engaged in captive offshoring are faced with two apparently contradictory sets of issues: a set of highly desirable and interrelated strategic benefits and a variety of operational challenges that arise from the imposed nature of the governance processes. The third project, a case study of a similar IT services organisation, examines how these apparently contradictory issues were resolved. The results show that it is the co-development and implementation of governance processes based on the informal working practices of both the onshore and offshore teams that enable the operational challenges established in the second project to be resolved and thus provide reconciliation between these and the achievement of the strategic benefits that drive offshoring. This thesis concludes that co-developed and implemented governance processes are a key factor in the mitigation of the deleterious effects of cross-organizational and cultural working and adds the notion of co-development and implementation of governance processes to the academic literature on the governance of outsourcing.