A case study of morphogenetic change in long-term offshoring

Rajesh Mirani

International Journal of Information Management, 2013, vol. 33, issue 4, 663-673

Abstract: This paper applies a morphogenetic change framework to the case study of a financial information services provider's relationships with offshore IT application vendors over a six year period, in order to discover the underlying causal mechanisms. The analysis finds the progression to have consisted of a sequence of three major organizational changes, where each change was characterized by a morphogenetic cycle of three phases – Structural and Cultural Conditioning, Socio-Cultural Interactions, and Structural and Cultural Elaboration. In the first phase of each change cycle, structural and cultural outcomes of antecedent cycles conditioned the context as perceived by managerial actors. In the second phase, these conditioning factors interacted with the organization's prevailing socio-cultural dynamics to influence managerial decisions and to effect change. Finally, in the third phase, the emergent consequences of their decisions further altered the structural and cultural landscape, thus conditioning the context for the subsequent change cycle. While the specific organizational mechanisms activated varied from one cycle to the next, the overall analysis collectively revealed the company's quest for more effective vendor relationships. It was seen to have struggled with inconsistencies in its view of a captive vendor's role in the first cycle, and a lack of standard processes with multiple vendors in the second cycle, before establishing closer, comprehensive, successful relationships with two vendors in the third cycle. These findings serve to validate the utility of the morphogenetic analytical framework in uncovering change factors unique to specific offshoring contexts.

Keywords: Case study; Critical realism; Information technology offshoring; Inter-organizational relationships; Morphogenesis; Organizational change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401213000509
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ininma:v:33:y:2013:i:4:p:663-673

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2013.03.006

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Information Management is currently edited by Yogesh K. Dwivedi

More articles in International Journal of Information Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().