research-article

Immigrant managers as boundary spanners on offshored software development projects: partners or bosses?

Authors:

Natalia Levina,

Aimee A. KaneAuthors Info & Claims

IWIC '09: Proceedings of the 2009 international workshop on Intercultural collaboration

Pages 61 - 70

https://doi.org/10.1145/1499224.1499236

Published: 20 February 2009 Publication History

Abstract

A growing trend to source complex software development projects to lower-cost (offshore) locations has created a need for effective collaboration across cultural boundaries. One way of addressing this need in practice has been to nominate onshore immigrants to manage projects being sourced to the immigrant's country of origin. The assumption is that these managers will enable effective collaboration by drawing on their dual identity. We report findings of a qualitative study involving offshore software providers and onshore project managers (both immigrant and non-immigrant) investigating consequences of this practice. We then use social identity theory to explain our findings.

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Cited By

Jewer JPetersen BGosine RWarrian P(2022)Boundaries and Boundary Spanning in Digital Innovation Outsourcing: The Influence of Institutional Logics and Governance SystemsInformation Systems Management10.1080/10580530.2022.213048040:3(250-269)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/10580530.2022.2130480
Chattopadhyay SAundhe M(2019)Vendor boundary spanning in Indian Information Technology (IT) companiesAsia Pacific Journal of Management10.1007/s10490-019-09696-8Online publication date: 20-Dec-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-019-09696-8
Bergkvist L(2015)Distributed IS Development ProjectsModern Techniques for Successful IT Project Management10.4018/978-1-4666-7473-8.ch011(221-244)Online publication date: 2015
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7473-8.ch011
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Immigrant managers as boundary spanners on offshored software development projects: partners or bosses?
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management
        Project staffing
        Systems development
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Collaboration in software development
      1. Programming teams

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

IWIC '09: Proceedings of the 2009 international workshop on Intercultural collaboration

February 2009

342 pages

ISBN:9781605585024

DOI:10.1145/1499224

General Chairs:
Susan Fussell
Carnegie Mellon University, USA
,
Pamela Hinds
Stanford University, USA
,
Toru Ishida
Kyoto University, Japan

Copyright © 2009 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 20 February 2009

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IWIC 09: International Workshop on Intercultural Collaboration 2009

February 20 - 21, 2009

California, Palo Alto, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 47 of 77 submissions, 61%

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Cited By

Jewer JPetersen BGosine RWarrian P(2022)Boundaries and Boundary Spanning in Digital Innovation Outsourcing: The Influence of Institutional Logics and Governance SystemsInformation Systems Management10.1080/10580530.2022.213048040:3(250-269)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1080/10580530.2022.2130480
Chattopadhyay SAundhe M(2019)Vendor boundary spanning in Indian Information Technology (IT) companiesAsia Pacific Journal of Management10.1007/s10490-019-09696-8Online publication date: 20-Dec-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-019-09696-8
Bergkvist L(2015)Distributed IS Development ProjectsModern Techniques for Successful IT Project Management10.4018/978-1-4666-7473-8.ch011(221-244)Online publication date: 2015
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-7473-8.ch011
Patru DLauche Kvan Kranenburg HZiggers G(2015)Multilateral Boundary SpannersMedical Care Research and Review10.1177/107755871559023372:6(665-686)Online publication date: 11-Jun-2015
https://doi.org/10.1177/1077558715590233
Abbott PZheng YDu RAbbott PZheng YDu R(2015)Collaboration as a Process of Creolization at VanceInfoCollaboration, Learning and Innovation Across Outsourced Services Value Networks10.1007/978-3-319-14421-4_2(21-33)Online publication date: 21-Jan-2015
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14421-4_2
Abbott PZheng YDu RAbbott PZheng YDu R(2015)IntroductionCollaboration, Learning and Innovation Across Outsourced Services Value Networks10.1007/978-3-319-14421-4_1(1-19)Online publication date: 21-Jan-2015
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14421-4_1
Kim KMithas SWhitaker JRoy P(2014)Research Note-Industry-Specific Human Capital and WagesInformation Systems Research10.1287/isre.2014.053225:3(618-638)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1287/isre.2014.0532
Du RAi SAbbott PZheng Y(2013)Contextual Factors, Knowledge Processes and Performance in Global Sourcing of IT ServicesGlobal Diffusion and Adoption of Technologies for Knowledge and Information Sharing10.4018/978-1-4666-2142-8.ch004(82-109)Online publication date: 2013
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-2142-8.ch004
Abbott PZheng YDu RWillcocks L(2013)From boundary spanning to creolizationThe Journal of Strategic Information Systems10.1016/j.jsis.2013.02.00222:2(121-136)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jsis.2013.02.002
Ai SDu RAbbott PZheng Y(2012)Internal and contextual factors, knowledge processes and performanceExpert Systems with Applications: An International Journal10.1016/j.eswa.2011.09.14239:4(4464-4472)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2012
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