Mitigating hidden costs in service offshoring: a strategic management perspective

摘要

Purpose - IT-enabled service offshoring has become a vital and widespread practice for firms seeking to realize various advantages. However, many firms suffer from "hidden costs" (the discrepancies between the expected and actual costs of offshoring), and these firms often find a disappointing outcome from their offshoring decisions. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how the adoption of an offshoring strategy can reduce such hidden costs and how this effect can be moderated by contextual factors, including the complexity of tasks and the accumulation of experience.