The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring (4^th Ed., 4th ed. 2023)

Global sourcing is a complex area, and one that managers must get to grips with as business investment in outsourcing continues to climb. This book provides invaluable guidance for the reader, walking them through the fundamentals of global sourcing to very recent trends, including intelligent automation, cloud services and crowdsourcing. Replete with key examples and cases, it allows students and managers alike to relate academic theory to practice, acting as a roadmap to a rapidly evolving field.

For the last decade, the authors have studied the full spectrum of activities involved in global sourcing from both client, supplier and advisory viewpoints. Their research has shown that while more firms engage in global sourcing activities, many of them are still struggling to extract value from sourcing relationships. While past research has produced numerous practical frameworks regarding the management of global sourcing of services, little of this insight has been put into practice.

This book addresses such shortcomings by exploring the impact of theory on practice. It is important reading for any academic, student or practitioner concerned with global sourcing either from the client or supplier perspective.

1               Overview of the Global Sourcing Marketplace

2               Sourcing Models

3               Country Attractiveness for Sourcing

4.              The Attractiveness of Western Countries for Outsourcing Services and Backsourcing

Part II: Building Sourcing Competencies

5              Supplier Configurations and Capabilities

6               Supplier Selection, Retained Management Capabilities, and Legal Issues

7               Leveraging Knowledge and Expertise

Part III: Managing Sourcing Relationships

9            Governance of Outsourcing Relationships

10            Managing Globally Distributed Teams

11            Captive and shared service centres

12            Innovation Through Outsourcing

Ilan Oshri is the Director of the Centre of Digital Enterprise and a Professor of Information Systems at the University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand. Ilan’s research interests revolve around sourcing, digital, work and innovation in business services. Ilan’s work was published in numerous journals including MIS Quarterly, Journal of MIS, Journal of the Association of Information Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, The Wall Street Journal and others. Ilan has published 22 books and dozens of industry reports and teaching cases on global sourcing, digital transformations and emerging technologies.

He is the co-founder and President of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Special Interest Group on Advances in Sourcing and the European and Chinese Global Sourcing Workshop. Ilan is currently serving as Senior Editor for the Journal of Information Technology.

Julia Kotlarsky is a Professor of Information Systems at the University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand. She holds a PhD from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (Netherlands). Julia’s research interests revolve around technology sourcing and digital innovation in knowledge-intensive business services, digital sustainability and more recently, studying interface between artificial intelligence technologies and humans, focusing on data issues and digital transformation. Julia has published 17 books and has written extensively about these topics in both managerial and academic journals including MIS Quarterly, Journal of MIS, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology and Wall Street Journal. 

Julia is the co-founder of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Special Interest Group on Advances in Sourcing and the European and

Well-established as the go-to text on the global outsourcing market

Details the impact of new technological developments, increasing digitization and sociopolitical shifts

Includes up-to-date examples that detail how academic theory can be applied to practice