Onshore-Offshore Competition: A Stage Model

The increased IT offshoring presents many benefits as well as challenges to today´s organizations. One major challenge is the competition between onshore employees and offshore employees for job security, challenging projects, status and resources. The onshore-offshore competition is complex and dynamic. Unmanaged or inappropriately managed competition seriously undermines IT offshoring efforts. However, very little research has been conducted in this important area. Organizations and managers are in urgent need for guidance on managing the onshore-offshore competition. This paper investigates into the reasons and effects of onshore-offshore competition and proposes a three-stage model on the evolution of the competition. It is proposed that onshore-offshore competition may evolve in three stages: individual competition, territorial competition and resource competition. At each stage the competition varies in intensity, focus and consequences. This model provides for managers a systematic means to analyze the state of competition in their organization and also guidelines on coping with the competition.