Managing change in offshore outsourcing alliances: case studies from a multinational pharmaceutical company

This paper attempts to provide an in-depth understanding of the organisational change process with respect to offshore outsourcing of IT services in a multinational company and to examine the effectiveness of approaches used to manage this change so that lessons may be drawn from these experiences. The research adopts a contextual-processual view to paint a broad picture of the issues involved in the different stages of offshore outsourcing. Using the case study method, the research draws on fieldwork from three different IT departments (cases) of the company, where offshore outsourcing programmes were implemented. The findings reveal that the adoption and use of offshore outsourcing was influenced by a combination of contextual factors and that a number of organisational factors involved in the diagnosis and planning as well as implementation phases contributed to or prevented the successful management of change. In light of the findings, a process model is presented, which provides a useful basis for understanding and explaining the change process with respect to offshore outsourcing in organisations.