International Business Research Forum
International Outsourcing of Services: Expanding the Research
Agenda
Saturday, April 1, 2006
Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University
About the Program
In most advanced countries, services account for a large - and growing - proportion of the national economic output. Companies, however, are outsourcing services to an unprecedented degree, often internationally. Several forces have converged in recent years to generate this exponential growth in the international outsourcing of services (IOS): the Y2K scare; worldwide spread of communications and computing technologies; increasing competitive pressures to trim costs, improve quality, and shorten product development cycles; tight labor markets in the west, coupled with a talented, motivated, low-cost, highly-educated, almost bottomless pool of labor in certain countries; and so on. This growth in IOS is applauded by some (many corporate executives, business scholars, free-trade economists), and opposed by others (many unions, employees in affected industries, and politicians).
Today, IOS has grown beyond call centers and simple software coding, to include a broad range of highly sophisticated IT operations, medical diagnostics and treatment, legal work, computer animation, and other advanced activities. Despite the manifest importance of this phenomenon for the global economy of the 21st century, the discussion largely remains mired in anecdotal evidence and political expediency, and surprisingly little academic research has systematically addressed the economic, technological, financial, political, and cultural aspects of IOS. What are the competitiveness implications of IOS? For the overall U.S. economy, for particular industries, and for individual companies, is IOS beneficial, harmful, or both? What policies must the U.S. government promote to capture economic value through IOS, while minimizing the downside?
This research forum will promote a discussion addressing these and other issues related to IOS and international competitiveness, and their implications for international business (IB) strategy and theory development.
Forum Chair
- Arvind Parkhe
Professor of International Business and Strategy
Cochran Research Fellow, Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University