Oliver Krancher

Governing Individual Learning in the Transition Phase of Software Maintenance Offshoring: A Dynamic Perspective

Prior studies suggest that clients need to actively govern knowledge transfer to vendor staff in offshore outsourcing. In this paper, we analyze longitudinal data from four software maintenance offshore outsourcing projects to explore why governance may be needed for knowledge transfer and how governance and the individual learning of vendor engineers interact over time. Our results suggest that self-control is central to learning, but may be hampered by low levels of trust and expertise at the outset of projects. For these foundations to develop, clients initially need to exert high amounts of formal and clan controls to enforce learning activities against barriers to knowledge sharing. Once learning activities occur, trust and expertise increase and control portfolios may show greater emphases on self-control.

Knowledge in Software-Maintenance Outsourcing Projects: Beyond Integration of Business and Technical Knowledge

Knowledge processes are critical to outsourced software projects. According to outsourcing research, outsourced software projects succeed if they manage to integrate the clients business knowledge and the vendors technical knowledge. In this paper, we submit that this view may not be wrong, but incomplete in a significant part of outsourced software work, which is software maintenance. Data from six software-maintenance outsourcing transitions indicate that more important than business or technical knowledge can be application knowledge, which vendor engineers acquire over time during practice. Application knowledge was the dominant knowledge during knowledge transfer activities and its acquisition enabled vendor staff to solve maintenance tasks. We discuss implications for widespread assumptions in outsourcing research.

Zwei Fallstudien zu begleitetem Wissenstransfer im Outsourcing: Implikationen für die Praxis

Dieses Kapitel berichtet von einem erfolgreichen und einem gescheiterten Wissenstransfer. In beiden Fallen sollte ein Softwareingenieur in einen neuen, komplexen Tatigkeitsbereich eingearbeitet werden. Die Falle geben Einblicke darin, wie die Wissensempfanger Handlungsfahigkeit erworben haben, welche Herausforderungen dabei auftraten und wie die Begleitung des Wissenstransfers half, mit diesen Herausforderungen umzugehen. Die Falle zeigen, 1) dass die angeleitete Arbeit an realen Aufgaben fur Wissenstransfer essenziell ist, 2) dass Teams dabei mit kognitiver Uberlastung der Wissensempfanger, mit anfanglich schwachen sozialen Beziehungen und mit ungunstigen Lernvorstellungen kampfen und 3) wie begleiteter Wissenstransfer helfen kann, mit jeder dieser Herausforderungen umzugehen. Das Kapitel schliest mit einer Reihe von praktischen Empfehlungen fur Wissenstransfer in komplexen Tatigkeitsbereichen.

Key Affordances of Platform-as-a-Service : Self-Organization and Continuous Feedback

Abstract Although software development teams increasingly use Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), a minimal amount is known regarding the impact of PaaS on software development. We explored the impact of PaaS on software development through a grounded-theory study, conducting 48 interviews in 16 teams. The data turned our attention to the affordances, or potentials for action, that PaaS provides to software development teams. Two key affordances emerging from our data analysis were self-organizing and triggering continuous feedback. Actualizing these affordances helped accelerate the collective learning processes that underlie software development, thus supporting software development teams in their quest for agility. Our emerging theory explains how, why, and when these affordances arise. The key contribution of our paper lies in unveiling how the use of cloud computing technology can transform technology-mediated collective learning activities by helping to remove barriers to rapid feedback. Our findings also imply that organizations can leverage PaaS to facilitate the transition to agile and continuous software development practices, in particular in conjunction with cross-functional team designs.

When the Exception Becomes the Norm: Direct Awards to IT Vendors by the Swiss Public Sector

Public sector procurement of IT often happens without public tendering because of vendor lock-in, as our ongoing research suggests. We have analyzed 2754 IT procurement projects during the last 7 years on the official Swiss electronic tendering platform. The results indicate that 47.2% of these projects involved contracts above WTO threshold awarded to external IT suppliers without bidding procedure. This is mainly caused by the lack of alternative IT suppliers being able to support existing IT systems. In this paper we introduce a new method for measuring IT vendor lock-in and we present descriptive results including a time series analysis. We find a higher share of direct awards in IT projects than in non-IT projects.

Managing Knowledge Transfer in Software-Maintenance Outsourcing Transitions: A System-Dynamics Perspective

The existing literature suggests that transitions in software-maintenance offshore outsourcing projects are prone to knowledge transfer blockades, i.e. situations in which the activities that would yield effective knowledge transfer do not occur, and that client management involvement is central to overcome them. However, the theoretical understanding of the knowledge transfer blockade is limited, and the reactive management behavior reported in case studies suggests that practitioners are frequently astonished by the dynamics that may give rise to the blockade. Drawing on recent research from offshore sourcing and reference theories, this study proposes a system dynamics framework to explain why knowledge transfer blockades emerge and how and why client management can overcome the blockade. The results suggest that blockades emerge from a vicious circle of weak learning due to cognitive overload of vendor staff and resulting negative ability attributions that result in reduced helping behavior and thus aggravate cognitive load. Client management may avoid these vicious circles by selecting vendor staff with strong prior related experience. Longer phases of coexistence of vendor staff and subject matter experts and high formal and clan controls may also mitigate vicious circles.

Learning Software-Maintenance Tasks in the Transition Phase of Offshore Outsourcing Projects: Two Learning-Theoretical Perspectives

The increasing practice of offshore outsourcing software maintenance has posed the challenge of effectively transferring knowledge to individual software engineers of the vendor. In this theoretical paper, we discuss the implications of two learning theories, the model of work-based learning (MWBL) and cognitive load theory (CLT), for knowledge transfer during the transition phase. Taken together, the theories suggest that learning mechanisms need to be aligned with the type of knowledge (tacit versus explicit), task characteristics (complexity and recurrence), and the recipients’ expertise. The MWBL proposes that learning mechanisms need to include conceptual and practical activities based on the relative importance of explicit and tacit knowledge. CLT explains how effective portfolios of learning mechanisms change over time. While job-shadowing, completion tasks, and supportive information may prevail at the outset of transition, they may be replaced by the work on conventional tasks towards the end of transition.