1 When present meets past : Onshore immigrants managing

The sourcing of projects from high-cost (onshore) to lower-cost (offshore) countries requires overcoming challenges broadly classified as coordination issues and status differences. Increasingly, onshore firms are turning to immigrants from offshore destinations, assuming they will enable effective collaboration by leveraging their bicultural backgrounds. We investigate the role of onshore immigrants in addressing collaboration challenges on such projects. Using data from interviews with onshore and offshore IT professionals, we illustrate that the practice of assigning onshore immigrant managers to boundary spanning roles can be either beneficial or seriously problematic. While, by and large, immigrant managers are able to address coordination challenges by translating across cultures, some of them significantly exacerbate status differences often already present on offshore projects. These immigrants no longer identify with the offshore group, sometimes even refusing to speak their mother tongue.