1Department of Marketing and MIS, University of Nebraska at Kearney, West Center 406C, Kearney, NE 68849, Phone: (308) 865–1548, Fax: (308) 865–8669, E-mail: agrawalvk@unk.edu.
2Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, 110025, INDIA, Phone: 011-91-11-26924703, E-mail: abidhaleem@hotmail.com.
Marshall McLuhan's vision (documented in 1964) of global village is a reality now. The characteristics of new business environment perceived by El Sawy include: amazing short product life cycle, compete in chaos, blurring industry and organizational boundaries, knowledge intensity, increasing returns to the scale, and information technology (IT) intensive strategic options. With blurring national boundaries, the numbers of competing organizations and knowledge workers have been increasing. To decrease their risk and remain competitive, organizations are compelled to use the expertise available through global sourcing and opt for alliances with organizations available globally. Additionally, the alliances help the organizations share expertise with each other and reduce their cost of product or services. This paper intends to identify the effect of competitive pressures on those organizations that specifically resulted from globalization initiatives and the resulting trends in global sourcing of various business functions/processes, including IT function.
globalization and global sourcing, offshoring, outsourcing
