An exploratory case study of offshore outsourcing within downstream structural steel engineering services

Simple item page
dc.contributorBack, W. Edward
dc.contributorHilton, Chad B.
dc.contributor.advisorGrau, David
dc.contributor.authorSalunke, Rakesh
dc.contributor.otherUniversity of Alabama Tuscaloosa
dc.date.accessioned2017-03-01T14:41:49Z
dc.date.available2017-03-01T14:41:49Z
dc.date.issued2011
dc.descriptionElectronic Thesis or Dissertationen_US
dc.description.abstractAlthough the offshore outsourcing trend continues to grow in the Architectural Engineering and Construction industry, research on the downstream design services has been fairly limited. In this thesis, we investigate downstream structural steel engineering services offshored from the United States to India. Employing ethnographic data collection method, we conduct face-to-face semi-structured interviews and telephonic interviews of US client and Indian vendors. Supporting evidences are gathered from multiple sources of data such as process checklists, minutes of meetings, and sample documents. Data analysis reveals 6 key constructs and 16 sub-constructs that address the issues and areas of concerns associated with offshore outsourcing of downstream design services. The key constructs include unrealistic contractual obligations, lack of constructability focus, inefficient design information exchange, technology interoperability issues, virtual team misalignment and internal team misalignment. We further assess our constructs' validity by testing for matching patterns between observed constructs and organizational theories--Institutional theory, Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) theory and Resource Based (RB) theory. Based upon the observed matching patterns we show that these theories can be used to understand the issues and problems arising due to off shoring of downstream design services. Through this theoretical categorization we generalize our findings across a wide spectrum of downstream engineering disciplines in the AEC industry. This research characterizes the offshore outsourced downstream structural steel engineering services and provides understanding of the critical problems and issues prevailing under the attractive surface benefits within offshore outsourced downstream design services.en_US
dc.format.extent124 p.
dc.format.mediumelectronic
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdf
dc.identifier.otheru0015_0000001_0000615
dc.identifier.otherSalunke_alatus_0004M_10624
dc.identifier.urihttps://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/1120
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Alabama Libraries
dc.relation.hasversionborn digital
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Electronic Theses and Dissertations
dc.relation.ispartofThe University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections
dc.rightsAll rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated.en_US
dc.subjectCivil engineering
dc.subjectOrganization theory
dc.subjectCultural Resources Management
dc.titleAn exploratory case study of offshore outsourcing within downstream structural steel engineering servicesen_US
dc.typethesis
dc.typetext
etdms.degree.departmentUniversity of Alabama. Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
etdms.degree.disciplineCivil, Construction & Environmental Engineering
etdms.degree.grantorThe University of Alabama
etdms.degree.levelmaster's
etdms.degree.nameM.S.
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
file_1.pdf
Size:
716.8 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
Collections
Theses and Dissertations
Theses and Dissertations - Department of Civil, Construction & Environmental Engineering