Lift and Shift: The Globalization of Services Outsourcing

This seminar is part of SPRIE's Fall 2003 series on "High-Tech Regions and the Globalization of Value Chains."

Over the past two decades, the physical products that we consume have increasingly been manufactured offshore. More recently, some business and consumer services have started moving overseas. India is an important destination for such work, as it has low labor costs, good remote process management skills, and adequate infrastructure. The talk will report on a recent visit to India in which about fifty business process outsourcing firms were interviewed. The work is part of a research project funded by the Sloan Foundation on understanding the impact of the globalization of business processes on the U.S. economy.

Martin Kenney is a professor in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of California, Davis and a senior project director at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy at the University of California, Berkeley. His research includes the role and history of the venture capital industry and the development of Silicon Valley. Kenney's recent books include Understanding Silicon Valley: Anatomy of an Entrepreneurial Region (2000) and Locating Global Advantage (forthcoming). He has consulted for various governments, companies, the United Nations, and the World Bank. He has been a visiting professor at Cambridge University, Copenhagen Business School, Hitotsubashi University, Kobe University, Osaka City University, and the University of Tokyo. He holds a B.A. and M.A. from San Diego State University and a Ph.D. from Cornell University.