Home-Host Country Distance in Offshore Governance Choices

Julien Gooris and Carine Peeters ()

Working Papers ECARES from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of home-host country distance on the choice ofgovernance mode in service offshoring. Using a Transaction Cost Economicsapproach, we explore the comparative costs of the hierarchical and contractualmodels to show that different dimensions of distance (geographic, cultural andinstitutional), because they generate different types of uncertainties, impactoffshore governance choices in different ways. Empirical results confirm that, onthe one hand, firms are more likely to respond to internal uncertainties resultingfrom geographic and cultural distance by leveraging the internal controls andcollaboration mechanisms of a captive offshore service center. On the other hand,they tend to respond to external uncertainties resulting from institutional distanceby limiting their foreign commitment and leveraging the resources and localexperience of third party service providers. Finally, we find that the temporaldistance component (time zone difference) of geographical dispersion betweenonshore and offshore countries plays a dominant role over the spatial distancecomponent.

Keywords: offshoring; home-host country distance; governance mode; global value chains; transaction cost economics; logistic regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 p.
Date: 2013-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-geo
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Home–Host Country Distance in Offshore Governance Choices (2014)
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