Article 1: A research framework for the impact of cultural differences on IT outsourcing

Gurung, A., & Prater, E. (2017). A research framework for the impact of cultural differences on IT outsourcing. In Global sourcing of services: strategies, issues and challenges (pp. 49-82).

This article by Gurung and Prater (2017) have addressed the oversight of the impacts of culture differences on the IT outsourcing as well as the virtual teams. The authors have also highlighted the extent of success achieved by the outsourcing in the modern day business as well as the disadvantages it has laid on the contemporary organisations. The framework provided by these authors in this article also include the concept of psychic distance in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon of virtual teams and the success of outsourcing. It is to note that this framework has contributed to a significant extent to the recognition of virtual software teams that are operating in dynamic business environment of the national boundaries, the individual preferences and the organisational practices that are affected by the elements of trust, experience and cultural affinity.

Khan, S. U., & Khan, A. W. (2017). Critical challenges in managing offshore software development outsourcing contract from vendors’ perspectives. IET Software, 11(1), 1-11.

Khan and Khan (2017) in this article have highlighted the critical challenges that the vendors face in organisations in the process of execution and management of the OSDO (Offshore software development outsourcing) contracts. With the same, they have also analysed all the identified challenged on the basis of the variables like organisational size, time and year. Lack of project management, poor monitoring system, failure in managing the end-user expectations, unforeseen contingencies, lacking in the outsourcing relationship management, non-competitive product and service pricing, regulatory and IPR issues and lack of negotiation strategies are some of the significant challenges faced by the vendors in the different IT firms in contemporary world during managing the offshore software development outsourcing contract. Moreover, Dinu (2015) in this context have also added to this list claiming that inadequate specification and plan of outsourcing along with high turnover of the vendor employees in the IT firms are also negative impacts of the OSDO contracts.   

Solli-Sæther, H., & Gottschalk, P. (2015). Stages-of-growth in outsourcing, offshoring and backsourcing: back to the future?. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 55(2), 88-94.

In this paper, Solli-Saether and Gottschalk (2015) have identified the different steps in the IT companies. They include the in-house staff functions, the offshored function, the in-house service function, the outsourced function as well as the back-sourced function.  However, it is to note that the author of this article have claimed that the growth in outsourcing, off-sourcing and back-sourcing do influence the growth and development of the entire organisation in positive way. They help in improving the competitive advantage of a company and there are several firms that have decided for outsourcing some or the other IT functions like the production, software development and maintenance for the highly skilled external vendors (Solli-Saether & Gotttschalk, 2015). Furthermore, it is also to mention that the different stages of growth model indicates a path for the evolution of the in-house functions of the company by means of outsourcing and off sourcing functions.

Article 2: Critical challenges in managing offshore software development outsourcing contract from vendor’s perspectives

Murthy, D. N. P., Karim, M. R., & Ahmadi, A. (2015). Data management in maintenance outsourcing. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 142, 100-110.

This article by Murthy, Karim and Ahmadi (2015) have developed a framework for the data management when the maintenance is outsourced. There is an increasing trend towards the process of outsourcing of maintenance and the data collection problems are also not addressed properly in many of the recent maintenance service contracts. These authors have highlighted the advantage of maintenance outsourcing in businesses today. It support for the specialised actuators and valves. It promotes the partnerships among the customers and vendors and at the same time, reduces the costs of MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Operation) for increasing their assets and return. With the same, maintenance outsourcing also helps in effective asset management. As per the authors, it paves the way for effective and better decision making and finally, helps in reducing the costs of MRO (Murthy, Karim & Ahmadi, 2015). 

Modibbo, U. M., Danladi, Y., Abubakar, F., Mohammed, I. M., Dauda, Y. M., Sani, F., & Adamu, J. J. (2018). OUTSOURCING LIBRARY SERVICES FOR EFFECTIVE LIBRARY MANAGEMENT. GLOBAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED, MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, 15.

As per Modibbo et al. (2018), outsourcing plays a very important role in the lower cost models of the service delivery. As per the authors, decision to outsource is significantly strategic in nature for most of the libraries due to the fact that it involves the weighing of the potential associated cost saving against the outcomes of the loss in control over a particular product or service. It helps buying skilled manpower at lower rates and improving efficiency in a company. At the same time, it has also helped several libraries in contemporary world in increasing the productivity of in less time and reducing the cost of training and operating. Furthermore, the information professionals and the Libraries can concentrate on the key activities because of outsourcing the library services. However, the author have also presented some criteria in order to select the outsource vendors and they are done on the basis of reasonable cost, quality assurance control terms and exposure to the advanced skills and technologies.

Ardagna, C. A., Ceravolo, P., & Damiani, E. (2016, December). Big data analytics as-a-service: Issues and challenges. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data) (pp. 3638-3644). IEEE.

In this article, the various issues and challenges laid forwards by the big data analytics have been assessed. As per the article, the level of complexity today and the shortage of standardisation of the management of Big Data architectures showcase a significant barrier towards the acceptance, adoption as well as the execution of the analytics, particularly for the big organisations. With the same, the small and medium scale organisations are also not including ample amount of knowledge and competencies (Ardagna, Cervolo & Damiani, 2016). Notwithstanding these facts, it is to note that this have also introduced two conflicting needs that are required to be reconciled for unleashing the full potential of the companies and they are- the requirement of combining the complex skills that are in relation to the data analytics and outsourcing of the service as well as the system architectures and the next is of improving the level of acceptance along with the usability of the Big Data technologies. 

Article 3: Stages-of-growth in outsourcing, offshoring and backsourcing: back to the future?

Khan, A. W., & Khan, S. U. (2015). Solutions for critical challenges in offshore software outsourcing contract. Pakistan Academy of Sciences, 52, 331-344.

In this article Khan and Khan (2015) have highlighted the practices and solutions in order to helps the vendors in the organisations to control and address the critical challenges that are faced by the vendors and are imposed by outsourcing of the services offered by the companies. There are several challenges vendors face in contemporary organisations comprising of unforeseen contingencies, lacking in the outsourcing relationship management, non-competitive product and service pricing, regulatory and IPR issues and lack of negotiation strategies etc. As per Khan and Khan (2015), these challenges can be overcome by practices including defining awareness regarding the culture for reducing the gap, avoiding misunderstanding by defining negotiation policy, training and interaction of the staffs, defining a hotline in between supplier and clients, building trust in between the parties involved in outsourcing, and arranging the face to face meetings in between the involved outsourcing parties.

Lacity, M., Khan, S., & Carmel, E. (2016). Employing US Military Families to Provide Business Process Outsourcing Services: A Case study of Impact Sourcing and Reshoring. CAIS, 39, 9.

Lacity, Khan and Carmel (2016) in this paper have described the advantages of outsourcing in the contemporary organisations. They have presented a case study on how a start-up business process outsourcing (BPO) has helped a client restore business services. The main idea of the authors here is to present the positive impact and effect of outsourcing services. As per the authors, there are several benefits of outsourcing starting from efficiency gains and cost savings and both of these aid to competitive advantages of a company. Notwithstanding this fact, the paper has also claimed that loss of control over the outsourced function is indeed a potential business risk involving outsourcing functions but all the risks can be eliminated by the advantages it possess. It not only cut down the cost but also reap the benefits of strategic outsourcing like accessing skilled expertise, reducing overhead, flexible staffing, and increasing efficiency, reducing turnaround time and eventually generating more profit. 

Zhang, Y., Liu, S., Tan, J., Jiang, G., & Zhu, Q. (2018). Effects of risks on the performance of business process outsourcing projects: The moderating roles of knowledge management capabilities. International Journal of Project Management, 36(4), 627-639.

As per the article, through the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) have the potential of reduce down the costs and to enhance the competitive advantage of the firms, implementing BPO projects is really unsatisfactory. The authors have also conduct a research that claims that about 50% of outsourcers believe that their outsourced business processes do not generate additional value. With the same, many of the participants have agreed on the point that they do not reduce the expected business operation management cost and also do not provide special knowledge. Also, as per the article there are several risk of BPO including the organisational environmental risk, the execution risk, the complexity risk, the vendor risk and the contract risk (Zhang et al., 2018). The study have also presented different measures in order to address those risks. However, it indicates that project management, technical system, and social system risks negatively affect BPO project satisfaction.

Article 4: Data management in maintenance outsourcing

Dinu, A. M. (2015). The risks and benefits of outsourcing. Knowledge Horizons. Economics, 7(2), 103.

This article by Dinu (2015) have highlighted both the risks and benefits of the outsourcing service in the contemporary business. The author of this article have claimed that the companies that choose to opt for outsourcing service need to consider the advantages and the risks very wisely and that, they need to take necessary measures for mitigating the related risks and for organising their personnel regarding the advantages of outsourcing. Along with describing different strategies for mitigating the risks, the article has also answered some significant questions like why firms chose to outsource their business process and in what potential outcomes they desire for. Also, they have mentioned that the choice of outsourcing is so risky and complicated due to the fact that there is an increased regulatory inquiry of the relationships of the companies with their service providers. According to Dinu (2015), practicing protections while finalizing the outsourcing arrangement, learning from past failures and selecting an established and experienced service supplier for making the outsourcing project profitable for the organisation. 

References:

Ardagna, C. A., Ceravolo, P., & Damiani, E. (2016, December). Big data analytics as-a-service: Issues and challenges. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data) (pp. 3638-3644). IEEE.

Dinu, A. M. (2015). The risks and benefits of outsourcing. Knowledge Horizons. Economics, 7(2), 103.

Gurung, A., & Prater, E. (2017). A research framework for the impact of cultural differences on IT outsourcing. In Global sourcing of services: strategies, issues and challenges (pp. 49-82).

Khan, A. W., & Khan, S. U. (2015). Solutions for critical challenges in offshore software outsourcing contract. Pakistan Academy of Sciences, 52, 331-344.

Khan, S. U., & Khan, A. W. (2017). Critical challenges in managing offshore software development outsourcing contract from vendors’ perspectives. IET Software, 11(1), 1-11.

Lacity, M., Khan, S., & Carmel, E. (2016). Employing US Military Families to Provide Business Process Outsourcing Services: A Case study of Impact Sourcing and Reshoring. CAIS, 39, 9.

Modibbo, U. M., Danladi, Y., Abubakar, F., Mohammed, I. M., Dauda, Y. M., Sani, F., & Adamu, J. J. (2018). OUTSOURCING LIBRARY SERVICES FOR EFFECTIVE LIBRARY MANAGEMENT. GLOBAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED, MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, 15.

Murthy, D. N. P., Karim, M. R., & Ahmadi, A. (2015). Data management in maintenance outsourcing. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 142, 100-110.

Solli-Sæther, H., & Gottschalk, P. (2015). Stages-of-growth in outsourcing, offshoring and backsourcing: back to the future?. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 55(2), 88-94.

Zhang, Y., Liu, S., Tan, J., Jiang, G., & Zhu, Q. (2018). Effects of risks on the performance of business process outsourcing projects: The moderating roles of knowledge management capabilities. International Journal of Project Management, 36(4), 627-639.