Intercultural Challenges Mitigation Model for Software Development Outsourcing Vendors

Offshore software development outsourcing (OSDO) is an emerging business approach adopted by many software development organisations in developed countries. However significant outsourcing failure rates have also been reported. One of the major issues in is cultural distance which should be taken into account by software outsourcing organisations (vendors) in order to develop high quality software products and in turn to establish long lasting relationships with client organisations. The objective of this project is to develop an Intercultural Challenges Mitigation Model (ICCMM) in order to help organisations (vendors) to address the intercultural challenges in OSDO relationships. Two types of data will be collected in this research project: firstly, to identify Intercultural challenges/factors faced by vendors in OSDO relationships via Systematic Literature Review (SLR); and secondly, how one can implement these intercultural challenges/factors in OSDO relationships. An empirical study will be conducted in order to seek opinions of software outsourcing experts about the guidelines or practices required to implement these factors in vendor organisations. The probable outcome of this project will be an Intercultural challenges mitigation model to help OSDO vendors in addressing and identifying intercultural challenges occur in the OSDO relationships.