A Passage to India:Process Models and Advanced Services Offshoring to India

This paper addresses a recent strand of offshoring research that concerns the processes of evolution and change that appear in offshoring partnerships after the launch of offshoring operations. Based on longitudinal case studies of offshoring of advanced IT and engineering services from Danish firms to Indian firms, I identify a process model with three stages that captures the evolution of the initial 1-2 years of the offshoring partnership. Overall, the data portray a rapid development of the Danish-Indian offshoring partnerships which show that once trust is established and offshoring firms gain experience, the offshoring firms will increase the sophistication as well as expand the range and volume of advanced work done offshore. The dynamics of the process therefore suggest that at a broader scale, advanced services offshoring will increase in the coming years.