Off-Shoring - Reflections And New Directions †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Off-Shoring - Reflections And New Directions. Answer: Offshoring refers to the relocation of the tasks related to the organization to foreign locations. With the rise in globalization, the scope and scale of offshoring has increased tremendously. However, there are some organizations that are faced by certain barriers to manage their activities which have been given as offshoring tasks. The given article the argument regarding the organizational design perspective should be build relating to offshoring. The organizational design perspective will help the organization to manage their relations well with the firms where they are offshoring their services to. According to the authors of the given study, a proper framework comprising of an organizational design will go a long way in helping the firm to maintain the offshore tasks with foreign firms effectively. Furthermore, through this paper, they have aimed to build upon the research and literature available on how the organizations manage their relationships with foreign companies. In th e given paper, the authors have outlined three stages referring to as disintegration, relocation and reintegration which help in the reconfiguration of the organization. The paper begins with a brief introduction in the concepts of the offshoring and the various reasons for which a business might choose to offshore its activities. It was witnessed that very often the business organizations find it more economical to offshore the activities instead of doing them on their own as this helps the business to save costs. The following sections discuss how the organizations often fail to manage their offshore management organizations and are unable to keep a track of them. For this purpose, a new framework had been suggested which would help the firm. The implications of the given perspective have been discussed along with a research agenda. As the number of firms engaging in offshore practices has been increasing, the need for a research based in this aspect plays a key role in further developing the related literature available on the topic. As the trend of getting external help from the foreign based organizations has been increasing, the author aimed to develop a framework which would support the topic and build a profound basis. One of the reasons why the author has been concerned about the given topic is that although many people have aimed to research on the given topic but the primary factors which lead to the decision of giving out the work to a foreign company. This might be due to limited number of organizations being considered for various cases represented by other researchers. Hence, through this paper the authors aimed to synthesize the insights resulting from the different domains so as to develop a framework which might help the research in the organization perspectives. This decision framework would als o serve as a guideline in helping to analyze the various related studies which have been conducted in the last 25 years. The given article not only conducts an overview of the research over the last five years, but also lays down alternatives that may be used while conducting future research on the given topic. The primary motto of the author was to provide research techniques and alternative theories that could form basis for analyzing the primary decision making criteria behind the choice of off shoring. The article begins with an overview of the studies conducted in the past, how they have been lacking with respect to perspective and how can future researchers account for the interdependencies between decisions for an overall offshore strategy. The decisions are greatly influenced by factors like cost, man power available, expertise and knowledge. In the IT Domain, offshoring is one of the most important business components whereby the IT unit of any business organization relies heavily on knowledge and equipment from its offshore counterparts. The author aims to analyze the various conditions under which the given exchange becomes possible. As identified by the author, social capital which tends to help the firm to smoothly carry out the offshore transfer of knowledge is rarely studied in various studies related to the factors influencing the transfer of knowledge. In the given article an argument is built with regard to the understanding of such knowledge transfer mechanisms. The authors propose that these off shore knowledge transfer mechanisms can be built better if the social capital is well developed in the organization. In the given paper the social capital has been considered with respect to the outcome expectation of the sender and the efficacy of the one who is sending the knowledge. It is believed that these two are the key drivers of motivation. A qualitative analysis had been conducted with respect to this which examined the case of a multinational company in Germany. The primary source of the data in the given paper were the IT Developers of the German multinational who provided the authors with in depth knowledge of their personal experience with their colleagues in India who were a part of their offshore strategy. Their analysis reflected a model which tends to show the influence of social capital and outcome expectations on the decision of choosing a relative IT Developer who would be ready to transfer knowledge. The authors have explained how social capital, expectations and efficacy are related to binding important IT offshoring relationships. However, the primary limitation of the given study is that it is based on just German companies. The given study is based on the analysis of the relationship between offshoring and onshore workforce combination in various multinational companies in Germany. This was conducted using the data available which allowed an analysis of discern tasks, occupations and the skills of the workforce. They study reflected that offshoring is generally related to the type of work which requires application of high skills and non-routine tasks. Very often the organization feels that if certain tasks are not that regular in an organization and are just required once in a while then, it is not economical to set a separate internal unit for it and it would be better to outsource the given task to some foreign firm. Highly educated workers are one of the other reasons why offshoring is preferred. The authors state that this shift in the requirement of highly educated worker is determined by the task composition. The paper observed that the shift in the off shore activities is determined by positive onshore responses in case of relating with low income countries. Their study reflected that around 10-15% of the changes in the shares of workers in their bills and the tasks are greatly predicted by offshoring. The primary highlights of the paper are that it is for advanced tasks that the offshoring mostly takes place. These advanced tasks mostly combine of the interactive and out of routine tasks. This finding is based on the German workplace tools which were analyzed. For the German countries, these shifts were stronger for offshoring to the developing countries. However, the study comprised of a limitation which was that the offshore shifts are not the only factors that can predict the increase in the skill demand at German Multinational companies. However, one of the drawbacks of this paper is that, it contributes towards only German perspective. References Becker, S. O., Ekholm, K., Muendler, M. A. (2013). Offshoring and the onshore composition of tasks and skills.Journal of International Economics,90(1), 91-106. Zimmermann, A., Ravishankar, M. N. (2014). Knowledge transfer in IT offshoring relationships: the roles of social capital, efficacy and outcome expectations.Information Systems Journal,24(2), 167-202. Mihalache, M., Mihalache, O. R. (2016). A decisional framework of offshoring: integrating insights from 25 years of research to provide direction for future.Decision Sciences,47(6), 1103-1149. Jensen, P. D. ., Larsen, M. M., Pedersen, T. (2013). The organizational design of offshoring: Taking stock and moving forward.Journal of International Management,19(4), 315-323.