Governing individual learning in the transition phase of software maintenance offshoring: a dynamic perspective

Oliver Krancher, Sandra Slaughter

Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapterArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Prior studies suggest that clients need to actively govern knowledge transfer to vendor staff in offshore outsourcing. In this paper, we analyze longitudinal data from four software maintenance offshore out-sourcing projects to explore why governance may be needed for knowledge transfer and how governance and the individual learning of vendor engineers inter-act over time. Our results suggest that self-control is central to learning, but may be hampered by low levels of trust and expertise at the outset of projects. For these foundations to develop, clients initially need to exert high amounts of formal and clan controls to enforce learning activities against barriers to knowledge sharing. Once learning activities occur, trust and expertise increase and control portfolios may show greater emphases on self-control.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 46th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Publication date2013
Publication statusPublished - 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Offshore outsourcing
  • Knowledge transfer
  • Governance
  • Client-vendor relations
  • Individual learning

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