Since 2007, South Africa has been one of the world's upcoming Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) offshore destinations. This book is based on the authors' most recent research into high performance BPO globally and new research streams specifically on South Africa.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)-the sourcing of business services through external third parties-is a global phenomenon, which generated nearly $300 billion worldwide in 2012. BPO is highly IT-enabled, and on a growth trajectory that impacts across functions of major, medium and small enterprises, including procurement, human resources, accounting and finance, sales, marketing, legal, asset management and key administrative processes. Despite this size and spread, BPO services and the ability of clients to manage their providers, are still evolving and have a mixed record. In the course of their research, the authors have found only 20% of outsourcing arrangements are world-class performers. A further 25% are 'good', 40% are 'OK' and 15% are 'poor'. This book pinpoints and describes in detail the effective practices that characterize the top global BPO performers, including Microsoft, BP, EMC and TalkTalk. The authors provide case illustrations and examples throughout of how world-class practices were generated and evolved, and how they can be applied to real life settings and problem areas.

Following drastic shifts in the spatial organization of goods production, increasingly fierce competition now forces firms also to look critically at how to organize the production of services. While digitization and advances in information and communication technologies have enabled firms to unbundle service production processes, the increased global availability of skilled labour allows for the relocation of ever more of these processes around the world. As a result, a new geography of services production takes shape: a geography that is defined by new interregional and international divisions of labour and held together by increasingly complex global services production networks. This book examines how the reorganisation of services production alters relations between and generates different sets of challenges and opportunities for economic development in the Global North and the Global South. Drawing from 11 case studies probing various aspects of services production in different parts of the world, the book brings out the remarkable heterogeneity and transformative capacities of services. It successively shows how global trade in services creates new interdependencies between services producing and services consuming regions; reveals how services help to mitigate the impact of and contribute to recovery from economic crises in the Global North; and demonstrates how services offshoring fosters economic development and service-sector driven modernisation processes in the Global South. The book’s openness to the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of services production enlarges our understanding of which particular services in which spatiotemporal context have the capacity to generate good jobs, contribute to productivity and drive economic growth. The book stands out from other books in the field in that it combines perspectives on services-driven transformations from both the Global North and the Global South and looks into the role of various services segments. Based on pioneering empirical research and original data it offers a timely contribution to this growing debate. The book provides valuable insights for students, scholars and professionals interested in services, services offshoring, services-driven growth, and socioeconomic transformations in the Global North and South.

Socially Responsible Outsourcing is an edited collection that focus on the topic of socially responsible outsourcing (SRO) including research frameworks, rich case studies, and an SRO agenda for the future.

Materiality, Rules and Regulation: New Trend in Management and Organization Studies concentrates on the relationship of rules and regulation to the materiality of artefacts, practices, and organizations. It combines the recent scholarly interest on sociomateriality with a focus on regulation and rules.

As a market estimated to be worth $2.4 billion globally and growing rapidly, all legal firms and in-house counsels will need to consider the opportunities and risks afforded by Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO).

The renaissance in urban theory draws directly from a fresh focus on the neglected realities of cities beyond the west and embraces the global south as the epicentre of urbanism. This Handbook engages the complex ways in which cities of the global south and the global north are rapidly shifting, the imperative for multiple genealogies of knowledge production, as well as a diversity of empirical entry points to understand contemporary urban dynamics. The Handbook works towards a geographical realignment in urban studies, bringing into conversation a wide array of cities across the global south – the ‘ordinary’, ‘mega’, ‘global’ and ‘peripheral’. With interdisciplinary contributions from a range of leading international experts, it profiles an emergent and geographically diverse body of work. The contributions draw on conflicting and divergent debates to open up discussion on the meaning of the city in, or of, the global south; arguments that are fluid and increasingly contested geographically and conceptually. It reflects on critical urbanism, the macro- and micro-scale forces that shape cities, including ideological, demographic and technological shifts, and constantly changing global and regional economic dynamics. Working with southern reference points, the chapters present themes in urban politics, identity and environment in ways that (re)frame our thinking about cities. The Handbook engages the twenty-first-century city through a ‘southern urban’ lens to stimulate scholarly, professional and activist engagements with the city.

This book is a guide for achieving innovation through outsourcing. Unpacking the various challenges faced by client firms and suppliers, the authors take the reader through the innovation lifecycle and devise a clear plan to achieve valuable results. Offering practical frameworks and tools to ensure informed decision-making at every stage, this book also includes collaborative structures and metrics to measure outcomes. Written by leading figures in the area of outsourcing, this book offers both the academic rigor and the hands-on experience based on dozens of cases that walk the reader from the very beginning of the outsourcing journey to the successful delivery of transformative innovations.

While digital tools are not new to museum management, more activities are being performed through their use in order to attract visitors, enrich the cultural experience, vary the experience context, and innovate the cultural industry. However, these tools need to be tested in order to understand the effects they have on both museum offerings and visitors. Further perspectives and insights are needed on the implementation of these digital instruments in museums. The Handbook of Research on Museum Management in the Digital Era combines theoretical efforts and empirical research to contribute to the debate on museum management in a digital context. It further observes, tracks, and assesses the ongoing changes brought on by digital solutions. Covering topics such as organizational change catalysts, sustainability of cultural heritage, and phygital experience, this book is an excellent resource for museum managers, museum curators, computer specialists, students and educators of higher education, researchers, and academicians.

This book attempts to synthesize research that contributes to a better understanding of how to reach sustainable business value through information systems (IS) outsourcing. Important topics in this realm are how IS outsourcing can contribute to innovation, how it can be dynamically governed, how to cope with its increasing complexity through multi-vendor arrangements, how service quality standards can be met, how corporate social responsibility can be upheld and how to cope with increasing demands of internationalization and new sourcing models, such as crowdsourcing and platform-based cooperation. These issues are viewed from either the client or vendor perspective, or both. The book should be of interest to all academics and students in the fields of Information Systems, Management and Organization as well as corporate executives and professionals who seek a more profound analysis and understanding of the underlying factors and mechanisms of outsourcing.