Information technology offshoring in India: a postcolonial perspective

M N Ravishankar, Shan L Pan and Michael D Myers

European Journal of Information Systems, 2013, vol. 22, issue 4, 387-402

Abstract: In recent years India has become the information technology (IT) offshoring destination of choice for many Western organizations. From the perspective of vendor organizations in India, however, the IT offshoring phenomenon is more than just a business relationship with Western firms. It is also embedded within the context of the longstanding imbalances of power in the relationship between the West and the East, the implications of which have been largely ignored in empirical work on offshoring within the information systems (IS) discipline. Drawing on concepts from postcolonial theory and using data from our ethnographic fieldwork, we explore the experiences and responses of one Indian vendor organization to asymmetries of power in its relationship with Western client organizations. Our analysis demonstrates how a postcolonial reading and interpretation of IT offshoring adds an important new dimension to previous IS research and also helps to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the strategies deployed by vendor organizations.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/ejis.2012.32 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:tjisxx:v:22:y:2013:i:4:p:387-402

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjis20

DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2012.32

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Information Systems is currently edited by Par Agerfalk

More articles in European Journal of Information Systems from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().