Delivering knowledge across boundaries: A process model of knowledge delivery in offshoring projects

Abstract

The lack of understanding on how to successfully deliver knowledge across boundaries in global offshoring projects, and on why the vendors cannot fully absorb the knowledge delivered from clients, is a gap in the existing literature that may account for the inefficient mechanisms used to deliver knowledge by clients and the shift of project management strategy from total outsourcing to global teamwork. To address this gap, an integrated framework is proposed to explain how the different types and amounts of knowledge are delivered across boundaries between vendors and clients in the outsourcing arrangements by combining the framework of knowledge boundaries and absorptive capacity. Applying the new theoretical lenses to analyze the case of BankCo offshore outsourcing project, the stages are identified, through which various types of knowledge are delivered from clients to vendors by sequential processes in each stage. In particular, our study reveals that the strategic shift from total global offshore outsourcing project to global distributed teamwork lends its opportunity to the hindrance of pragmatic boundary and insufficient knowledge absorptive capacity of the vendor organizations.