IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jintbs/v40y2009i6p926-943.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Separable but not equal: The location determinants of discrete services offshoring activities

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan P Doh

    (Department of Management, Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, Villanova, USA)

  • Kraiwinee Bunyaratavej

    (Department of Business Administration and Accounting, Wesley College, Dover, USA)

  • Eugene D Hahn

    (Department of Information and Decision Sciences, Salisbury University, Salisbury, USA)

Abstract

In this paper we explore the question of why firms offshore particular services to specific geographic locations. We draw on research related to the unique characteristics of services in trade and commerce, and more recent analyses of the transnational unbundling and spatial dispersion of business processes. We move beyond a simple assessment of the cost sensitivity or relative sophistication of offshoring services and develop a typology emphasizing the degree to which offshoring services activities are interactive, repetitive, or innovative. We suggest that the location of offshoring projects will depend on the particular mix of these attributes, and test this assertion using a data set of 595 export-oriented offshore services projects initiated from 2002 to 2005 by US and UK company parents in 45 developed and developing countries. We find that offshore location choices greatly depend on these services characteristics, and in sometimes surprising ways, and draw implications from our findings for international business theory, policy, and practice. Journal of International Business Studies (2009) 40, 926–943. doi:10.1057/jibs.2008.89

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan P Doh & Kraiwinee Bunyaratavej & Eugene D Hahn, 2009. "Separable but not equal: The location determinants of discrete services offshoring activities," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 40(6), pages 926-943, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:40:y:2009:i:6:p:926-943
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v40/n6/pdf/jibs200889a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jibs/journal/v40/n6/full/jibs200889a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:40:y:2009:i:6:p:926-943. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.