Abstract
Within the service sector, the software industry has been among the prime movers in the process of offshoring work to new destinations. This is facilitated by the immaterial character of the products and their components and by the industry's inclination to use new technical opportunities for its own purposes as well. This paper investigates practices of virtual cooperation and team work in small and start-up software companies based in Austria. Evidence indicates that because of their niche strategies and the related conditions of their national context, these companies often depend on international cooperation which, in turn, often takes on a ‘virtual’ form.
Highlights
The software industry has been among the prime movers in the process of offshoring work to new destinations (Huws 2003a)
In this paper we investigate practices of virtual cooperation and team work in small and start-up software companies based in Austria
Among small and start-up software companies we find an additional path of internationalisation: they cooperate with customer companies in the development of new products and practice cross-border virtual cooperation, usually in a dependent position in these customers’ value chains and networks
Summary
The software industry has been among the prime movers in the process of offshoring work to new destinations (Huws 2003a) This is not really surprising given the fact that its products and their components are immaterial and transport is not cost sensitive. A number of new companies, mostly small or medium-sized, have gone international soon after their inception (Kudina, Yip & Barkema 2008) These so-called ‘born globals’ are strongly driven by the mindset of their managers and the need to attract more business than they can get in their domestic markets (Eurofound, 2012). Before presenting the case study findings we will briefly discuss the characteristics and challenges of virtual cooperation and describe the methodology of the study
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