Global outsourcing has entered its third phase in recent business history. Outsourcing of manufactured goods was followed in the past couple of decades by IT outsourcing which typically involved software development. The third phase of outsourcing – services outsourcing – has now begun in earnest. Boeing uses aeronautics specialists in Russia; Texas Instruments designs chips in India; architects are being sourced in Hungary; U.S. brokerages, investment banks, and rating agencies are sourcing research and industry reports from finance specialists in India; accountants from the Philippines and Ireland are working on taxes and financial reports for U.S companies; and Indian professionals are remotely managing business processes and sophisticated IT networks for large Western corporations. Professional knowledge-intensive service work is now being outsourced around the world, and lower operating costs are not the only motivation driving this phenomenon. Companies are now outsourcing globally to tap the world for expertise in services.
The special issue welcomes papers, ethnographic, and/or case studies from all areas of business related to the various issues involved in the global sourcing of services in different industries. Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
* Metrics of outsourcing success
* Outsourcer and outsourcee characteristics
* Auditability and assurance of outsourcing relationships
* Marketing of outsourcing skills
* Management of outsourcing
* Antecedents of outsourcing
* Intra-firm and Inter-firm measures of outsourcing returns
* Customer perceptions of outsourcing
* Pitfalls of outsourcing
* Outsourcing best practices
* Third party logistics in world wide shipping services
* Outsourcing in global supply chains
* Outsourcing (e)-fulfilment services
Articles submitted to the journal should be original contributions and should not be under consideration for any other publication at the same time. The reviewing process and the manuscript requirements are consistent with IJSIM requirements. Electronic manuscript submissions in PDF or Word format are strongly encouraged and should be emailed on or before 1st June, 2004 to any of the Guest Editors.
Special Issue Guest Editors
Ravi S. Behara, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of IT & Operations Management
College of Business
Florida Atlantic University
777 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431
U.S.A.
Tel: ++1 561 297 2778
Fax: ++1 561 297 3686
rbehara@fau.edu
Somnath Bhattacharya, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
School of Accounting
College of Business
Florida Atlantic University
5353 Parkside Drive
Jupiter, FL 33458
U.S.A.
Tel: ++1 561 799 8713
Fax: ++1 561 799 8535
sbhatt@fau.edu
Pieter Pauwels, Ph.D
Assistant professor
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
Maastricht University
P.O. Box 616
NL 6200 MD Maastricht
The Netherlands
Tel +31 43 3883774
Fax +31 43 3884918
P.Pauwels@mw.unimaas.nl
Professor Dr. Janjaap Semeijn
Open University Netherlands
Directorate Management Sciences
Box 2960
6401 DL Heerlen
The Netherlands
Tel +31 45 5762588
Fax +31 45 5762103
J.Semeijn@MW.unimaas.nl