Global outsourcing has entered its third phase in recent business history. Outsourcing of manufactured goods was followed in the past couple of decades by IT outsourcing which typically involved software development. The third phase of outsourcing - services outsourcing - has now begun in earnest. Boeing uses aeronautics specialists in Russia; Texas Instruments designs chips in India; architects are being sourced in Hungary; U.S. brokerages, investment banks, and rating agencies are sourcing research and industry reports from finance specialists in India; accountants from the Philippines and Ireland are working on taxes and financial reports for U.S companies; and Indian professionals are remotely managing business processes and sophisticated IT networks for large Western corporations. Professional knowledge-intensive service work is now being outsourced around the world, and lower operating costs are not the only motivation driving this phenomenon. Companies are now outsourcing globally to tap the world for expertise in services.



The special issue welcomes papers, ethnographic, and/or case studies from all areas of business related to the various issues involved in the global sourcing of services in different industries. Suggested topics include but are not limited to:



* Metrics of outsourcing success

* Outsourcer and outsourcee characteristics

* Auditability and assurance of outsourcing relationships

* Marketing of outsourcing skills

* Management of outsourcing

* Antecedents of outsourcing

* Intra-firm and Inter-firm measures of outsourcing returns

* Customer perceptions of outsourcing

* Pitfalls of outsourcing

* Outsourcing best practices

* Third party logistics in world wide shipping services

* Outsourcing in global supply chains

* Outsourcing (e)-fulfilment services



Articles submitted to the journal should be original contributions and should not be under consideration for any other publication at the same time. The reviewing process and the manuscript requirements are consistent with IJSIM requirements. Electronic manuscript submissions in PDF or Word format are strongly encouraged and should be emailed on or before 1st June, 2004 to any of the Guest Editors.



Special Issue Guest Editors



Ravi S. Behara, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Department of IT & Operations Management

College of Business

Florida Atlantic University

777 Glades Road

Boca Raton, FL 33431

U.S.A.

Tel: ++1 561 297 2778

Fax: ++1 561 297 3686

rbehara@fau.edu



Somnath Bhattacharya, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

School of Accounting

College of Business

Florida Atlantic University

5353 Parkside Drive

Jupiter, FL 33458

U.S.A.

Tel: ++1 561 799 8713

Fax: ++1 561 799 8535

sbhatt@fau.edu



Pieter Pauwels, Ph.D

Assistant professor

Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Maastricht University

P.O. Box 616

NL 6200 MD Maastricht

The Netherlands

Tel +31 43 3883774

Fax +31 43 3884918

P.Pauwels@mw.unimaas.nl



Professor Dr. Janjaap Semeijn

Open University Netherlands

Directorate Management Sciences

Box 2960

6401 DL Heerlen

The Netherlands

Tel +31 45 5762588

Fax +31 45 5762103

J.Semeijn@MW.unimaas.nl