IT Offshoring in Tunisia: Trust Views from the Client and the Vendor Perspectives

This article is about the role played by trust in structuring and shaping offshoring processes and how cultural differences interfere and play a mediating role within these inter firms relationships. Our study conducted within three IT services providers companies established in Tunisia has provided a dataset that has first confirmed the structuring role of trust in terms of transferability effect between the client and the offshoring unit. Our findings also indicate that trust is perceived as an influencing factor when it is situated at the inter organizational level and not at the interpersonal level for all the actors, independently of their cultural affiliation (individualistic versus collectivist). Whereas, “Cultural differences” are finally not experienced the same way by our respondents, notably trust seems more difficult to settle between the Tunisian partners than between the Tunisian offshoring unit and its European clients.