Technology Strategy and Management Globalization of Knowledge- Intensive Professional Services

摘要

There are several reasons why the offshore outsourcing of professional services is occurring. But there are some unknowns, especially in relation to the nature of professions that will affect the future of this phenomenon. The factors motivating offshore outsourcing are strong, and the pressures to offshore will remain. But the experience with the offshore outsourcing of software development sheds some light on just how difficult it is to deal with issues of work decomposition and iteration. The trajectory of global delivery of software work does not initially appear to translate well into that of professional services due to an additional factor of uncertainty in the nature of self-regulation of professions and the boundary of professional work. Thus, it is not advisable to draw too many conclusions about the future of the professional service offshoring from the experience thus far with software offshore outsourcing.