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Research on outsourcing normally focuses on outsourcing of production and often uses large firms as samples. Only a few studies address the outsourcing of services or knowledge-intensive activities such as new product development (NPD), and especially in the context of medium-sized firms. Our earlier research in medium-sized firms indicates that outsourcing of NPD is frequent in medium-sized firms, and that there is a lack of knowledge about the phenomenon.

This article offers a theoretical framework to study the outsourcing of NPD, and includes the results from a longitudinal case study carried out in six Swedish medium-sized firms to help understand the rationales behind outsourcing of NPD. Results from the present study indicate that 'good enough' is the keyword for medium-sized firms with limited resources. This means that it is considered more important with proximity and trust than world class competence, since close and frequent contacts are crucial, when outsourcing knowledge-intensive activities such as NPD. A conceptual model and a definition of the good enough concept are also presented.

Various important benefits can be achieved through the successful management of offshore outsourcing. Numerous studies exist on outsourcing in general, yet the vast majority of extant literature on offshore outsourcing has dealt with information technology (IT) outsourcing from the client's perspective. Several frameworks, focusing on guiding information systems managers in relation to IT outsourcing, have been developed. However, none of these frameworks attempted to provide a holistic guideline to manage the entire process of offshore outsourcing of software production. There is a significant lack of studies dealing with the management of offshore outsourcing of software production from both the vendor's and client's perspectives. Thus, there is a great need to study such a multifaceted and complex phenomenon more deeply for both scenarios to find out the best practices for managing the unified process. In this study, we utilize the conceptual framework of The ICT-supported Unified Process Model of Offshore Software Production Outsourcing as our research model. We then validate this model by reviewing the vast extant literature, and by conducting multiple case studies from both the vendor's and client's viewpoints, where professionals with extensive experience in managing offshore outsourcing of software production are interviewed. The implications of the findings are discussed for both practical and research purposes.

Organizations need to share and acquire new information to sustain competitive advantage in complex environment. They communicate through IT-based integrated systems to fasten communication and knowledge sharing for the creation of innovative products. Firms are, thus, extending their operations to integrate strategic knowledge from partners in the product development process. In this paper, we present a case study related to process innovation in an aerospace firm integrating its information systems with one of its partners to facilitate the design of the models of a complex product. We investigate on the strategy followed to integrate the information systems, the types of these latter, on their success factors and their impact on the product development. The case study provides important insights on the integration of information systems for product design outsourcing.

Many researchers and industrial professionals recognize new product development (NPD) as a potential alternative for improving and sustaining competitive position in the market and made attempt to identify factors and variables that contribute to the capability of a firm in new product development. However, it is necessary to quantify these factors and variables in order to establish their relationships with the capability of NPD of a firm. Quantification of the factors is essential in order to achieve adequate control over the NPD activities. In this research work, a methodology is developed to quantify the factors and to establish empirical relationships of capability of NPD of a firm with its various main and support functions of new product development. In each of the selected function, the variables which contribute to NPD capability are identified by respondents/experts participated in a questionnaire survey. Out of the variables identified, three best variables are selected based on the importance assigned by the respondents. Utility functions and fuzzy analytical method are used for establishing the relationships between variables and the capabilities of the functions. The methodology is applied to an industrial product of a construction equipment-manufacturing firm that actively involves all the main functions and support activities as required for new product development. This methodology based on regression analysis may be used to monitor the product development process over a planning period on a continuous basis in a manufacturing firm.

We develop a framework for understanding the direct and indirect influence of various strategic considerations and environmental factors on the project-level R&D outsourcing decision. We argue that environmental factors can act as shift parameters that increase or decrease the costs of outsourcing. We further posit that it is important to consider firm-level strategic considerations in addition to the project- and transaction-level characteristics that are typically the focus of an R&D outsourcing decision, which highlights the importance of integrating the information possessed by managers from different levels of the organization. Finally, we discuss several directions for future research in this increasingly important area of innovation and technology management.

Indian outsourcing industry undeterred by recent plummeting growth of global ICT market is experiencing robust growth. Indian ICT firms, by and large, follow success breed success formula by replicating the strategies adopted by the leaders in the market. Two top Indian ICT outsourcing firms have adopted diversification strategy to expand their presence in multiple industry verticals across geographies by offering a diversified range of services. This study, using an entropy analysis, measures the degree of diversification of the top two and most successful Indian outsourcing firm in five different dimensions. The second part of the study analyzes the overall impact of diversification on the performance of the firm. This study reveals that although overall diversification signifies a positive impact on the firm performance, each dimension leaves a different impact on the different firms’ performance.