Offshore middlemen: transnational intermediation in technology sourcing

Intermediaries in E-Commerce: Value Creation Roles

Very early in the evolution of e-commerce, predictions were made that a significant degree of disintermediation would occur, i.e., that middlemen would be eliminated from the value chain through the use of the Internet. The reasoning was as follows. The economic benefit of middlemen, or intermediaries, is that they reduce transaction costs for functions that are outside the firm (Coase, 1937). ...

More on Middlemen: Equilibrium Entry and Efficiency in Intermediated Markets

This paper generalizes Rubinstein and Wolinsky’s model of middlemen (intermediation) by incorporating production and search costs, plus more general matching and bargaining. This allows us to study many new issues, including entry, efficiency and dynamics. In the benchmark model, equilibrium exists uniquely, and involves production and intermediation for some parameters but not others. Sometime...

Crafting and Executing an Offshore IT Sourcing Strategy: GlobShop's Experience

This teaching case discusses the decisions facing GlobShop, a global travel-retail company, in its efforts to offshore a significant portion of its information technology (IT) work. In response to the business challenges that arose due to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the company decided to outsource many of its IT activities to an Indian vendor. This case traces the key decisions m...

The Maturation of Offshore Sourcing of Information Technology Work

A Qualitative Investigation of IS Offshore Sourcing

The present study is a qualitative empirical investigation of the underlying decision process to offshore IT projects. The study is based on interviews of executives in fifteen large to medium size companies. Transactions Costs Theory and a process view of offshore sourcing provided the framework for studying the decision process. The data revealed several factorsthe client’s core competency, o...