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Decision Support for Global Enterprises pp 75–89Cite as

Management of Knowledge Transfer in Distributed Software Organizations: The Outsourcers’ Perspective

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Part of the Annals of Information Systems book series (AOIS,volume 2)

Abstract

Software development is a complex iterative process, where knowledge builds as work progresses, requiring an ongoing awareness by all participants of the changing definitions and relationships in the development effort. This has resulted decentralized decision making, where knowledge workers distributed across development centers are involved in making or breaking decisions. Outsourcers who develop for overseas clients have realized the need for some measures of control to manage distributed project tasks, while at the same time motivating their knowledge workers. A study of how knowledge capital is managed in a decentralized and distributed environment during the offshore software development processes forms the basis of this study. The issues are illustrated using two case studies of offshore outsourcers in New Zealand, an’ up and coming’ outsourcing nation. The study reveals that both firms emphasize monitoring and management of knowledge transfer processes, but also raises questions about the future for New Zealand outsourcers.

Keywords

  • Offshore outsourcing
  • software development processes
  • outsourcer
  • knowledge transfer
  • decision making

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

    Anuradha Mathrani & David Parsons

Authors
  1. Anuradha Mathrani
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  2. David Parsons
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Uday Kulkarni

  2. University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA

    Daniel J. Power

  3. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

    Ramesh Sharda

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Mathrani, A., Parsons, D. (2007). Management of Knowledge Transfer in Distributed Software Organizations: The Outsourcers’ Perspective. In: Kulkarni, U., Power, D.J., Sharda, R. (eds) Decision Support for Global Enterprises. Annals of Information Systems, vol 2. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-48137-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-48137-1_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

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