Wholly Owned Offshore Subsidiaries for IT Development: A Program of Research

Information Technology (IT) offshore outsourcing is a non-reversible trend due to its cost implications, and as a result, target of much inquiry in different areas of knowledge. We propose to focus research efforts on a smaller niche within that larger set of questions: the wholly owned subsidiary (WOS) created with the purpose of IT development. In particular, our first step will be to develop a fully testable maturity model for such endeavors in the context of distributed IT projects. The proposed maturity model will not only identify best practices along difference maturity stages but also help to benchmark across similar organizations. Our preliminary research suggests that there is a consistent sequence of phases that this type of IT offshore sourcing follows.