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This study aims to develop a model for coordination and communication overhead in distributed software development through case study analysis in the Indian outsourcing software industry. The model is based on business knowledge, which can be classified as domain, regulatory, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge as per existing literature.

Double case study method was used to verify an existing knowledge–management framework of software development from the literature. The stakeholders of both the cases were interviewed, and project documents were verified to reach conclusions.

The findings supported the business knowledge classification from the literature. The concept can be used to analyze the software project in a distributed environment.

The research work findings are based only on two case studies. The study findings cannot be generalized and should be used as a learning tool. There can be large variations of project characteristics with differences in business knowledge requirements. The research shows the importance of business knowledge transfer in global software development.

Projects managers in the distributed software development environment can use the findings in project planning and work allocation for better control over cost and schedule, etc.

There is little research works attempted to study the business knowledge classification in the global software industry making the research novel.

This paper aims to explore the expertise level required in various kinds of business knowledge such as regulatory, domain, strategic, operation process and, business process to execute globally distributed software projects for development, re-engineering and maintenance projects in the Indian outsourcing software industry.

This study adopted a questionnaire survey method to collect the expert responses for a knowledge management framework which is suggested in the literature for software development work. The questionnaire survey findings were verified by expert interviews.

The research shows that there is a lot of similarity between re-engineering and maintenance projects for different kinds of business knowledge expertise requirements for execution. The development projects require higher expertise in all the business knowledge for execution.

The research work studies the business knowledge required for the execution of development, re-engineering and maintenance projects in Indian outsourcing software projects. However, the project’s characteristics can vary drastically for a single kind of project. So the study cannot be generalized and instead should be used as a tool for learning.

The research findings can be used by software project managers to get insight into project planning, which can help the division of work between the onsite, offshore team and individual work allocation.

The research is novel as there are very few previous attempts to find the business expertise needed to execute various kinds of software projects in the Indian outsourcing industry.

The paper aims to study manpower dynamics at offshore and onsite location for maintenance project, which are transferred to offshore location in a phase-wise manner. The purpose of the paper is to find good values of onsite–offshore team strength, the number of hours of communication between onsite and offshore teams for smooth transfer of software maintenance project to offshore location.

This study uses system dynamics simulation approach to study manpower allocation at onsite and offshore locations to transfer the maintenance work to offshore location in a gradual manner. The authors consulted 13 experts from Indian software outsourcing industry during the model construction and validation.

The simulation results show that the complexity of maintenance project has an insignificant effect on offshore migration. The maintenance work transfer should start with initial onsite team strength higher than that of required for ticket solving and project. The initial offshore team strength should be based on training capacity available at the onsite location. The higher attrition rate at an offshore is detrimental for offshore migration.

The implication of the study is in the development of a broad framework of software maintenance work transfer to offshore locations for Indian software outsourcing projects. As the study is based on expert opinion in the context of India, it cannot be generalized for outsourcing scenarios elsewhere.

The software project manager can use the findings to get more insight into maintenance project offshore migration and divide the software team between onsite and offshore location.

The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the manpower composition at onsite and offshore locations for software maintenance project during the migration phase.

The study explores the potential barriers to data science (DS) implementation in organizations and identifies the key barriers. The identified barriers were explored for their interconnectedness and characteristics. This study aims to help organizations formulate apt DS strategies by providing a close-to-reality DS implementation framework of barriers, in conjunction with extant literature and practitioners' viewpoints.

The authors synthesized 100 distinct barriers through systematic literature review (SLR) under the individual, organizational and governmental taxonomies. In discussions with 48 industry experts through semi-structured interviews, 14 key barriers were identified. The selected barriers were explored for their pair-wise relationships using interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and fuzzy Matriced’ Impacts Croise's Multiplication Appliquée a UN Classement (MICMAC) analyses in formulating the hierarchical framework.

The lack of awareness and data-related challenges are identified as the most prominent barriers, followed by non-alignment with organizational strategy, lack of competency with vendors and premature governmental arrangements, and classified as independent variables. The non-commitment of top-management team (TMT), significant investment costs, lack of swiftness in change management and a low tolerance for complexity and initial failures are recognized as the linkage variables. Employee reluctance, mid-level managerial resistance, a dearth of adequate skills and knowledge and working in silos depend on the rest of the identified barriers. The perceived threat to society is classified as the autonomous variable.

The study augments theoretical understanding from the literature with the practical viewpoints of industry experts in enhancing the knowledge of the DS ecosystem. The research offers organizations a generic framework to combat hindrances to DS initiatives strategically.

Digital transformation (DT) leverages digital technologies to change current processes and introduce new processes in any organisation’s business model, customer/user experience and operational processes (DT pillars). Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a significant role in achieving DT. As DT is touching each sphere of humanity, AI led DT is raising many fundamental questions. These questions raise concerns for the systems deployed, how they should behave, what risks they carry, the monitoring and evaluation control we have in hand, etc. These issues call for the need to integrate ethics in AI led DT. The purpose of this study is to develop an “AI led ethical digital transformation framework”.

Based on the literature survey, various existing business ethics decision-making models were synthesised. The authors mapped essential characteristics such as intensity and the individual, organisational and opportunity factors of ethics models with the proposed AI led ethical DT. The DT framework is evaluated using a thematic analysis of 23 expert interviews with relevant AI ethics personas from industry and society. The qualitative data of the interviews and opinion data has been analysed using MAXQDA software.

The authors have explored how AI can drive the ethical DT framework and have identified the core constituents of developing an AI led ethical DT framework. Backed by established ethical theories, the paper presents how DT pillars are related and sequenced to ethical factors. This research provides the potential to examine theoretically sequenced ethical factors with practical DT pillars.

The study establishes deduced and induced ethical value codes based on thematic analysis to develop guidelines for the pursuit of ethical DT. The authors identify four unique induced themes, namely, corporate social responsibility, perceived value, standard benchmarking and learning willingness. The comprehensive findings of this research, supported by a robust theoretical background, have substantial implications for academic research and corporate applicability. The proposed AI led ethical DT framework is unique and can be used for integrated social, technological and economic ethical research.

The purpose of this paper is to find good values of onsite-offshore team strength; number of hours of communication between business users and onsite team and between onsite and offshore team so as to reduce project cost and improve schedule in a global software development (GSD) environment for software development project.

This study employs system dynamics simulation approach to study software project characteristics in both co-located and distributed development environments. The authors consulted 14 experts from Indian software outsourcing industry during our model construction and validation.

The study results show that there is a drop in overall team productivity in outsourcing environment by considering the offshore options. But the project cost can be reduced by employing the offshore team for coding and testing work only with minimal training for imparting business knowledge. The research results show that there is a potential to save project cost by being flexible in project schedule.

The implication of the study is that the project management team should be careful not to keep high percentage of manpower at offshore location in distributed software environment. A large offshore team can increase project cost and schedule due to higher training overhead, lower productivity and higher error proneness. In GSD, the management effort should be to keep requirement analysis and design work at onsite location and involves the offshore team in coding and testing work.

The software project manager can use the model results to divide the software team between onsite and offshore location during various phases of software development in distributed environment.

The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the team distribution between onsite and offshore location in GSD environment.

The purpose of the paper is to find out the knowledge requirements and its effect on both onsite and offshore project work division for development, re-engineering and maintenance projects in Indian outsourcing software industry in different phases of software development.

This study employs an expert interview approach in Indian software industry to find out knowledge requirement for project execution and division of work between onsite and offshore locations. The requisite data were collected through expert interviews and direct observations.

The study found that the development projects require higher level of domain, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge in comparison to re-engineering and maintenance projects. So there is a need of higher onsite presence in development projects. The maintenance work is taken up at the offshore location in a phase-wise manner.

The implication of the study is in the development of a broad framework of knowledge requirements and work division in on-shore and offshore locations for Indian software outsourcing projects. As the study is based on expert opinion in the context of India, it cannot be generalized for outsourcing scenarios elsewhere.

The software project manager can use the findings to get more insight into the project and divide the software team between onsite and offshore location.

The study is novel, as there is little attempt at finding the knowledge requirement to execute various kinds of business software development in outsourcing environment in the context of India.

The aim of this paper is to make an attempt to find good values of onsite–offshore team strength; number of hours of communication between business users and onsite team and between onsite and offshore team to reduce cost and improve schedule for re-engineering projects in global software development environment.

The system dynamics technique is used for simulation model construction and policy run experimentation. The experts from Indian software outsourcing industry were consulted for model construction, validation and analysis of policy run results in both co-located and distributed software development environment.

The study results show that there is a drop in the overall team productivity in outsourcing environment by considering the offshore options. But the project cost can be reduced by employing the offshore team for coding and testing work only with minimal training for imparting business knowledge. The research results show that there is a potential to save project cost by being flexible in project schedule.

The study found that there could be substantial cost saving for re-engineering projects with a loss of project schedule when an appropriate onsite–offshore combination is used. The quality and productivity drop, however, were rather small for such combinations. The cost savings are high when re-engineering work is sent to offshore location entirely after completion of requirement analysis work at onsite location and providing training to offshore team in business knowledge The research findings show that there is potential to make large cost savings by being flexible in project schedule for re-engineering projects.

The software project manager can use the model results to divide the software team between onsite and offshore location during various phases of software development in distributed environment.

The study is novel as there is little attempt at finding the team distribution between onsite and offshore location in global software development environment.