Comparing and Contrasting International Business and Economic Geography Perspectives on the ‘Place, Space and Organisation’ of Service Offshoring

This paper adds to the growing body of work at the interface of International Business and Economic Geography by comparing and contrasting the perspectives of these two disciplines on geographic and organisational aspects of ‘service offshoring’. The intention is to work towards an enhanced, inter-disciplinary understanding of this important phenomenon; this paper takes some initial steps. The paper begins with an initial comparison of the scope and key concerns of the two disciplines and a brief review of some recent studies of service offshoring from both fields. The main section of the paper comprises a comparative discussion, organised around four focal themes relating to the conceptualisation of ‘place, space and organisation’ in the specific case of service offshoring: (1) Conceptualising ‘organisation’: theorising the firm, extended network contexts and intra-firm network relations; (2) The geographical unit of analysis and issues of spatial scale; (3) Conceptualising location and the firm-location ‘nexus’; (4) Conceptualising ‘distance’ and its influence on firm behaviour.