Boundary Spanners in a Global Software Development Project: A Qualitative Case Study of an Indian Service Provider's On-Site Managers

Western companies´ outsourcing of short-term projects with low cost tasks to third world countries are increasingly being replaced by strategic partnerships that require closer collaboration between client and vendor. The majority of contributions within offshore outsourcing look at challenges in virtual communication, trust building and knowledge sharing, seen from a Western client perspective. I adopt a less ‘West-centric’ stance by drawing on interviews conducted in an Indian MNC providing advanced IT services and strategic business solutions to its clients all around the world. In this paper I study some of the key boundary spanners, Indian managers in so called on-site teams, who are responsible for developing trustful and sustainable client relations and coordinating complex projects across cultures, languages organizational boundaries, time zones and geographical distances. In the interview analysis I focus on 1) how the Indian vendor prepares its employees for cross-cultural teamwork, 2) which cross-cultural challenges the Indian on-site management team experiences in collaborating with Western clients and coordinating off-shore development projects, and 3) which skills and competencies they draw on in their complex boundary spanning work in order to be able to deal constructively with multiple cultures (regional, national, organizational and professional). in their interorganisational and cross-cultural interactions?