Browsing by Subject "Outsourcing"
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Item 1-800 worlds : embodiment and experience in the Indian call center economy(2010-08) Krishnamurthy, Mathangi Kasi; Hartigan, John, 1964-; Visweswaran, Kamala; Brow, James; Stewart, Kathleen; Abraham, Itty; Flores, RichardThis dissertation is concerned with the everyday lives of transnational Indian call center workers when situated within the global politics of voice-based outsourcing. The call center economy gained impetus in early 2000-2001, when multinational corporations began to train young men and women in India to mask their spatial and temporal location, in order that they could serve customers in the US and the UK. Taking calls through the night to serve the work day of Western consumers, these customer service agents were asked to assume a different name, location, and cultural and language markers, as part of the requirements of work. I explore the ways in which these young, middle-class workers located themselves within practices, contentious representations, and material outcomes of this transnational outsourcing economy. Through ethnographic research in Pune, a prominent university town and call center hub in western India, I investigate (1) everyday life in and out of the call center, (2) labor management practices within call centers, and (3) the socio-economic and cultural transformations that accompanied and framed the development of the urban Indian call center economy. This research engages with the machinations of multinational corporations as they incorporate large number of labor forces worldwide into transnational work. It builds on three main bodies of theory - flexible or late capital and flexibility, the South Asian postcolonial nation-state, and affective labor. Through these, I provide a thick description of the history, construction, maintenance and disruption of this site, as also the ways in which this particular story of capital was stabilized. I engage with questions such as, what complex negotiations underlie the ostensible success of new service economies in India? What are its cultural, political and economic determinants and ramifications? What grounds are the claims of state, capital and culture being contested or reified upon, and what do such negotiations mean for service workers within the landscape of urban India? This dissertation shows how the practice of everyday life in this transnational milieu is best explained as the collusion and tension between the contested socio-economic spaces of the new Indian middle-classes and middle-class-ness, and an ungrounded discourse of mobile and flexible capital. The stories of call center workers in this analysis are the stories of particular subjects called upon and striving to be constantly flexible in order to successfully become middle-class and global in the same breath, one often seamlessly overlapping the other.Item An empirical analysis of the value of IT investment, outsourcing, and strategy: an agile transaction cost perspective(Texas Tech University, 2007-12) Thouin, Mark F.; Hoffman, James J.; Jones, Donald R.; Ewing, Bradley T.; Ford, Eric W.In a series of three studies, this thesis empirically examines the relationships among determinants of information systems technology (IT) business value. The first study uses the theoretical foundation of production economics to analyze changes in efficiency due to the level of investment in IT, the level of IT outsourcing, and the level of investment in IT personnel. An analysis of 914 Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems (IHDS) reveals both IT budgetary expenditures and the number of IT services outsourced are associated with increases in IHDS profitability, while increases in IT personnel are not significantly associated with increased profitability. The second study uses the theoretical foundation of transaction cost economics (TCE) to explain the effect of the level of low asset specificity, commodity IT outsourcing on firm-level financial performance. An analysis of 825 Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems (IHDS) reveals higher levels of commodity IT outsourcing are associated with superior financial performance resulting in an average $3,120,000 in savings, a 25% average increase in profit. The implications are significant in that organizations should use asset specificity to guide outsourcing decisions. The third study uses the General Theory of Competition (GTC) and the theory of competitive agility as theoretical foundations to posit that a firm’s IT agility affects its ability to adapt to environmental change, achieve competitive advantage, and realize superior financial performance. In addition, the effects of commodity IT outsourcing and strategic IT outsourcing on IT agility are examined. An analysis of 822 Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems (IHDS) reveals increased IT agility is associated with superior financial performance, while commodity and strategic outsourcing are associated with increased IT agility. These findings demonstrate the importance of organizational IT agility in achieving superior financial performance, the positive effect of outsourcing on IT agility, and the relevance of process oriented theories of competitive advantage to the field of management information systems and the study of IT business value.Item Contract manufacturing(2010-12) Patel, Sitansh Rajnikant; Lewis, Kyle, 1961-; Darwin, Thomas J.By surveying literature on the topics of contract manufacturing, this report describes how organizations can make use of contract manufacturing to enhance their profitability and competitiveness. This paper is intended to serve as a guide for organization executives, managers, and team members who are exploring contract manufacturing. It is a how-to manual, and addresses various issues involved in the contract manufacturing, and suggests a methodology for addressing them. Finally, the report briefly describes the perceived benefits of contract manufacturing, but lack of understanding of the total costs involved in executing this initiative may adversely affect many organizations. Thus, the question arises how company decides if contract manufacturing is the right decision, and if yes, then how they perform it effectively and efficiently?Item Factors affecting the cost of engineering for transportation projects(2009-12) Singh, Prakash, 1983-; O'Brien, William J.; Persad, Khali R.State DOTs (department of transportation) spend billions of dollars on construction and maintenance of transportation projects every year. In addition, significant sums go to preliminary and construction engineering (PE and CE). For many projects, DOTs utilize engineering services from consultants, to supplement in-house engineering. The cost and quality of consultant’s engineering services compared to in-house, are important issues to justify the involvement of consultants. This report provides an analysis of those issues on Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) projects. Traditionally, the costs of PE and CE are calculated as a fixed percentage of total project construction cost, and the efficiency of engineering organizations is assessed by comparison of their gross percentages. However, the results presented here show that project scope and complexity are significant factors in PE and CE cost. Therefore, simplistic comparisons of PE and CE percentages can be misleading when applied across a mixed program of projects.Item The hidden costs of IT offshoring(2010-05) Solitro, Stephen Philip; Ambler, Tony; Newburger, MannyIn this paper, I will explore the hidden costs and risks of IT offshoring and how to manage those costs so that realistic expectations can be set. Establishing a baseline of such expectations will help companies understand and follow best practices in planning, executing, and managing the full offshore lifecycle. While details will vary with each project, offshore vendor, and company, these costs are seen across most offshore ventures and, if understood, will help explain why so many offshoring attempts fail, help IT managers and decision makers anticipate potential problems, and help CIOs more accurately predict cost savings.Item Management of Intellectual Property in Supply Chain Outsourcing(2012-10-19) Sen Gupta, RajorshiFirms outsource productive tasks to different locations in order to exploit factor price differentials and gain efficiencies from specialization. However, the benefits of outsourcing come with two risks. The first problem occurs when firms share their pre-existing intellectual property (IP) such as database and trade secrets with contractors. While IP is shared to facilitate the outsourcing project, the contractor may behave opportunistically and misappropriate the IP for its own benefit. Since firms derive significant value from their IP, this can lead to severe economic damages in terms of reduced market share and brand value. The second agency problem arises due to non-contractible effort exerted by the contractor. Depending on the outsourced task, shirking can lead to higher costs and poor quality product. In this dissertation, contractual solutions are developed to mitigate these agency problems associated with outsourcing. First, several IP misappropriation cases are enumerated in the context of outsourcing. The existing literature is reviewed and the limitations are addressed in the light of these actual cases. Second, theoretical models are developed by considering two forms of IP misappropriation, depending on whether a R&D contractor emerges as a direct competitor of the principal firm, or the contractor sells the principal?s IP to a competitor. Contracts are developed to implement a ?carrot and stick? strategy, whereby firms share limited IP with their contractor and also provide incentive payments to deter shirking problem. It is shown that complementary strategies like product differentiation, task modularization, and investment in technological solutions can be useful when legal enforcement is weak. It is also demonstrated that even under the possibility of IP misappropriation; firms may gain from outsourcing if in-house inefficiency is high. However, if legal enforcement is weak, outsourcing would entail higher transaction costs. Finally, an event study is conducted to examine the effect of trade secret misappropriation on the value of Lexar. While Lexar is still outsourcing, it is explored how Lexar survived the IP misappropriation problem through product differentiation and marketing strategies.Item Outsourcing and wage inequality in the home country(2009-05-15) Hsu, Kuang-ChungThis dissertation consists of three essays, which mainly talk about the wage inequality caused by outsourcing in the source countries like the US. The title of the first essay is ?Does Outsourcing Always Benefit Skilled Labor? A Dynamic Product Cycle Model Approach.? To understand why outsourcing did not cause wage inequality in the 1970s, I build a dynamic product cycle model with three kinds of labor inputs, scientists, white-collar workers, and blue-collar workers. First, only a homogenous representative producer exists in the model and then the paper allows for producer heterogeneity. According to my theoretical model, outsourcing can hurt skilled labor and does not cause wage inequality if outsourcing industries are absolutely blue-collar worker-intensive compared to non-outsourcing industries. Only scientists who conduct research and development always benefit from outsourcing. The second essay is an empirical work. The title is ?Outsourcing, Innovation, and Wage Inequality in the United States: What Happened to the Outsourcing Effect on Wage Inequality in the 1970s?? I find that, in the 1970s, white-collar workers? wages deteriorated and blue-collar workers? wages were non-decreasing. R&D workers always benefit from outsourcing. Except computers and high-technology capital, innovation expenditure on wage payment was an additional source of wage inequality in the 1980s. The last essay is named ?Beyond the Wage Inequality, the Impact of Outsourcing on the U.S. Labor Market.? To understand the impact of outsourcing on employment, I examine laborers? ages, gender ratio, years of education, and job tenure and retention rates. By employing the January Current Population Survey (CPS) data, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) production data, and outsourcing data provided by Feenstra and Hanson, I find that outsourcing decreased blue-collar laborers? average years of completed education; increased the hiring of females into white-collar workers, and increased job stability of unskilled and skilled laborers in the 1980s. Thus, outsourcing did not take away unskilled laborers? jobs but hindered new hiring of young unskilled workersItem The role of the Western engineer in the emerging Asian multinational corporation(2010-12) Tomazin, Thomas Joseph; Lewis, Kyle, 1961-; Darwin, TommyIn recent years there has been a growing trend of Western companies outsourcing many engineering jobs to Taiwan, India, and China. While companies have been outsourcing and moving manufacturing jobs for decades, there is a recent acceleration of sending “high tech” engineering jobs overseas. While the job loss in the Western world is alarming to Western engineers, there is another trend that is keeping jobs in the West that deserves some consideration. Asian multinational corporations are acquiring engineering operations in the United States and Europe. Since there is seemingly abundant talent available in their home countries, what motivates these Asian multinational corporations to invest in Western engineering operations? Is this investment a long term viable employment option for Western engineers? This paper will address these two critical questions.