Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
submittedVersion
Publication Date
8-2011
Abstract
We investigate coordination strategies in the remote delivery of business services (i.e. Business Process Offshoring). We analyze 126 surveys of offshored processes to understand both the sources of difficulty in the remote delivery of services as well as how organizations overcome these difficulties. We find that interdependence between offshored and onshore processes can lower offshore process performance. Investment in coordination mechanisms such as modularity, ongoing communication and generating common ground across locations ameliorate the performance impact of interdependence. In particular, we are able to show that building common ground - knowledge that is shared and known to be shared - across locations is a coordination mechanism that is distinct from building communication channels or modularising processes. Our results also suggest the firms may be investing less in common ground than they should.
Keywords
Coordination, Offshoring, Modularity, Common Ground, Interdependence, offshore outsourcing
Discipline
Business
Research Areas
Strategy and Organisation
Publication
Strategic Management Journal
Volume
32
Issue
8
First Page
849
Last Page
875
ISSN
1097-0266
Identifier
10.1002/smj.908
Citation
SRIKANTH, Kannan and Puranam, Phanish.
Integrating distributed work: task design, communication and tacit coordination mechanisms. (2011). Strategic Management Journal. 32, (8), 849-875.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/4694
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.908