Current debates surrounding “outsourcing” and “offshore” limit our understanding of the dynamics of services in the global environment by failing to 1) carefully define terms and 2) delineate key differences in production architectures, practices and regional impacts. Defining offshore and outsourcing is important because such definitions inform the unique structure of services in general and software services in particular. They also open a pathway to understanding similarities or differences with new IT enabled-services. The changing nature of the definitions is really a reflection of questions surrounding the costs and benefits of variations on how services are developed globally. This paper begins by considering definitions of “offshore” to work through the unique aspects of IT services, and how they have affected the evolution of specific regions in the global economy.

A central case to begin to evaluate these issues is the emergence and evolution of the Indian industry. While very well known, revisiting the Indian case through the lens of the state of Andhra Pradesh helps synch actual industry evolution with current myths and realities of offshore development. The Indian case also highlights general trends that indicate the limits and possibilities for offshore and outsourced IT services in the global industry through the end of the decade. The final section concludes with a consideration of what such industry patterns indicate for the regional growth and development through offshore production.

Andhra Pradesh is quickly developing into the third site of the South Indian “Silicon Triangle”. Regional government initiatives over the last six years have propelled the region from virtual non-existence to an increasingly central node of software development in the global economy. These efforts have been propelled by revitalized regional institutions that have built on national development legacies and global trends. This raises three central issues. First, what forms do information technology (IT) development initiatives take in contrast to previous development efforts? Second, how do global and national trends structure such regional initiatives? Finally, how do IT economic initiatives impact upon and structure social and cultural interactions?

Each of these questions is at the heart of understanding information technology-focused regional initiatives that are increasingly a central, if not well understood, aspect of development efforts globally. IT industries like software have unique production processes and business structures that rely on being embedded within innovative and human resource-based environments. These unique aspects have framed the organizational and expansion patterns of the industry in quite distinct ways from previous forms of industrialization. Both positive and negative national legacies, in essence the legacies of previous forms of industrial policy, have been key resources upon which such an innovative environments have been established. These dual national legacies and the unique demands of IT production have shaped the management and building of new regional institutions and social structures. It is exactly these regional policy and institutional innovations that will be central determinate of the long-term viability of the software technology cluster.

Andhra Pradesh is an ideal case through which to understand the social and economic impacts of IT exactly because it highlights the recognition that viable IT economic strategies are inherently linked to social transformations. This is seen in the combination of three facets of the regional initiative: the replication of national resources on the regional level, the building of unique regional capacities, and the fostering and capturing of private initiatives. The key aspect of each of these initiatives is that they form an organic whole that is essential to developing the long-term viability of the software-focused strategy in Andhra Pradesh. This long-term viability, as reflected in the nature of the initiatives themselves, goes beyond the mere fostering of “information industries or economies”, but entails the reformulation of social and political relations around an “information society”. In this way, Andhra Pradesh offers insight into the social and economic framework within which new social relations are being structured within India and other regions around the world as they pursue new models of development.

From the outside looking in, software development debates seem to be thriving. Both software engineering and craft-based method advocates appear no closer to a consensus now than thirty years ago. Considering the debate from a social and economic viewpoint helps reframe the issue, moving towards a clearer understanding of software and software development. There is much that is unique in software, but also much that, especially conceptually, is and has been debated, discussed and learned before. This places software development debates within historical and current perspective. Bringing software into non-technical frameworks involves translating software issues into equivalent social and economic problem domains. The very act of translating and viewing software through social science domains raises questions - What is software? Why is it hard to make? Why do we care? - that normally are assumed by insiders as obvious and well understood. However, such assumptions are often the central issue at stake that prevents solutions from forming.

While there is general agreement on the goal of producing high-quality, low cost software, underlying assumptions concerning the rationalization of software, managing communication and the role of domain-knowledge remain at the heart of development debates. Developing new analogies outside of the current dichotomy of craft and engineering can help highlight these central issues. This also enables software development to learn from existing research on innovation, intellectual work, and information industries to bring new tools to an old debate. Placing domain-knowledge and design at the center of software discussions, opens up a series of issues that can guide software development questions in the short and long-term future.

The production structures of information industries, the mechanisms that translate information into new products and power, remain opaque. Without defining these micro-foundational patterns, simple questions — what is information, how is it produced, is this production structure significantly unique — remain unanswered, limiting analysis of information-based development

generally, and evaluation of higher-level “information” theories specifically. Opening the “black box” of software outlines these production practices in one of the central industries of the coming decades, helping explain its social and economic impact and locating its evolution within broader global economic patterns.

Detailing the informational patterns in software opens a path to consider an ideal-typology of informational production. Such an ideal-type helps define terms and hypotheses that capture both unique differences and general patterns in an informational environment. Ignoring such patterns limits our understanding and analysis of the broader social transformations in the global environment. Failing to recognize these processes limits the space for social debate, policy and action around the establishment and evolution of new information technologies and industries.

Software is a unique process that draws on socially structured domain-knowledge as its central resource. This clarifies the importance of information and design in an informational environment, as well as signals the impact of digital architectures in structuring new patterns of social interaction. These informational patterns are embedded in software both technically and through the development process, resulting in a strong cohesion between production, product and industry structures. Software increasingly is a central, but hidden factor within the global environment structuring production practices, embedded in products and shaping social interactions. Many of the central conflicts, assumptions and patterns in information societies are directly linked to software’s informational practice or highlighted first through software focused debates. Ignoring such patterns directly limits our understanding and analysis of the broader social transformations in the global environment. Failing to recognize these processes limits the space for social debate, policy and action around the establishment and evolution of these new digital architectures at the locus of their development.

The presence of information technology (IT) within the global environment has been extensively studied, but its structure and impact has not been rigorously explained. In many ways, this failure to explain IT stems from a basic lack of understanding the technology itself, both in terms of its historic development and its basic production patterns. Such an explanation is important exactly because its absence limits an analysis of global processes generally, and the discussion of “information societies and economies” in particular. If information technologies are central in structuring new global trends, then it is an empirical necessity to detail the social and economic impacts derived from such technologies. Such impacts can not be understood, or at best only partially, if the basic conceptualizations and processes underlying IT are not defined.

The purpose of this outline is to step back from more macro approaches and consider information technology from first principles. The aim is to clarify and define both the informational and technological aspects of IT, then link these into considerations of the potential impact on economic and social development.

The development of the Iceland Genetic Database provides an entry point into considerations of some of the most essential social questions arising from new economic and technological changes in the global environment. On one level, there are very serious issues of privacy, competition, commercialization and individual rights that challenge or extend existing legal codes and social norms in very fundamental ways. On a higher level, the developments in Iceland provide a way to outline how global economic, social and technological trends shape and connect with local resources, needs and policies. This second aspect, that will be the considered here, is crucial exactly because it frames and establishes the lower level concerns as central social issues of the coming decades.

Information technologies, both as a process and product, contain embedded social knowledge, and thus represent the construction of new social norms and institutions. However, the construction of such new social structures on the local level is intimately tied broader global trends. As such cases like Iceland demonstrate how information technologies like biotechnology are a mechanism for linking the local and global. This is not to downplay the concerns of rights and access that characterize the majority of local debates around biotechnology and genetics in general. However, focusing on the broader issues helps elaborate on how these more specific issues are defined by and a part of a more basic restructuring of social relationships within an information-driven environment.

Simply, Iceland matters not only because of concerns over privacy or commercialization of genetic information, but because the debate itself only exists when broader global trends impact in very real and powerful ways on specific regions and populations. A fuller understanding of an information society, and by extension develop a detailed understanding of developments in Iceland, requires that we develop an analysis of both the local and global, social and personal, and economic and cultural.

The aim is to move beyond narrow considerations of privacy or ethics to understand that the experience of Iceland represents general trends in the global environment that are simultaneously extremely personal and local events.

Recent articles have rekindled discussions around the direction and relevance of US business schools. The two main viewpoints are distinct but equally critical. On one hand, business schools are considered overly focused on “scientific research” and having lost their connection to “real world” and management issues. On the other hand, schools are considered “dysfunctionally” focused on media rankings and short-term superficial marketing fixes. Our study of educational opportunities and workforce development in Silicon Valley suggests a different viewpoint. We agree that both approaches correctly identify the challenge of preparing managers in globalized world. However, we believe they misdiagnose the cause of the failure. Rather than being lost or dysfunctional, we believe business programs — like the firms and students they serve — are in the process of evolving to meet a shifting global and local environment. Our findings indicate that business schools face structural, content, and program shifts. Educationally, business programs continue to be seen as doing a good job of educating their students in core functional areas and processes. However, they do less well in teaching their graduates interpersonal skills, real-time decision-making, recognition of contexts, and integration across functional areas. These are increasingly the skills demanded by the global business environment. Even more challenging is meeting the demand for both sets of skills within very specialized fields like technology management. Structurally, new types of students and learning demands are placing stresses on traditional full-time two-year programs and their business models. Women and minority groups increasingly form the majority of the future student population, with distinct needs and demands for part-time and executive education. This shift is also evident in demands for life-long learning and engagement as opposed to a fixed, one-shot program experiences. These challenges require business schools to build upon what they do well, while innovating to serve new business and student needs.

Recent articles have rekindled discussions around the direction and relevance of US business schools. The two main viewpoints are distinct but equally critical. On one hand, business schools are considered overly focused on “scientific research” and having lost their connection to “real world” and management issues. On the other hand, schools are considered “dysfunctionally” focused on media rankings and short-term superficial marketing fixes. Our study of educational opportunities and workforce development in Silicon Valley suggests a different viewpoint. We agree that both approaches correctly identify the challenge of preparing managers in globalized world. However, we believe they misdiagnose the cause of the failure. Rather than being lost or dysfunctional, we believe business programs — like the firms and students they serve — are in the process of evolving to meet a shifting global and local environment. Our findings indicate that business schools face structural, content, and program shifts. Educationally, business programs continue to be seen as doing a good job of educating their students in core functional areas and processes. However, they do less well in teaching their graduates interpersonal skills, real-time decision-making, recognition of contexts, and integration across functional areas. These are increasingly the skills demanded by the global business environment. Even more challenging is meeting the demand for both sets of skills within very specialized fields like technology management. Structurally, new types of students and learning demands are placing stresses on traditional full-time two-year programs and their business models. Women and minority groups increasingly form the majority of the future student population, with distinct needs and demands for part-time and executive education. This shift is also evident in demands for life-long learning and engagement as opposed to a fixed, one-shot program experiences. These challenges require business schools to build upon what they do well, while innovating to serve new business and student needs.