Global sourcing of knowledge services and innovation: An integrative literature review Yeda Swirski de Souza 1 , Iuri Gavronski and Artur Jacobus Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos – UNISINOS, São Leopoldo/RS, Brasil ARTICLE DETAILS ABSTRACT Article history: Received 27 October 2014 Accepted 15 May 2015 Available online in 30 August 2015 Double Blind Review System Scientific Editors Gabriel Vouga Chueke Marcos Amatucci Global sourcing of knowledge services and innovation (GSKSI) has been the subject of several studies in a wide range of areas, including strategy and international management, economic geography, organizational behavior, operations management, among others. The objectives of this paper are twofold: a) to produce a summary of GSKSI studies and b) provide a research agenda for GSKSI. We conducted a systematic review of the academic literature and found that, in addition to essays, reports and theoretical papers, empirical studies on GSKSI are distributed into four main categories: strategic and international management; technology and innovation management; labor, organizational behavior and human resources; and operations management. Our paper contributes in two unique ways: by providing a quantitative analysis of the literature and a qualitative assessment of the results of previous studies. © 2015 Internext | ESPM. All rights reserved! Keywords: Offshoring BPO Knowledge-intensive Services Innovation Literature Review 1. Introduction Global sourcing of knowledge services and innovation (GSKSI) is a relatively new phenomenon (GIÃO, OLIVEIRA JÚNIOR; 2013; GIÃO, OLIVEIRA JÚNIOR, VASCONCELLOS; 2008). In the 1980s, it was responsible for an insignificant portion of the global economy. In fact, in 1986 there were approximately 5,000 people employed in the area worldwide. However, in 2003 there were already about 350,000 positions available, specifically in the area of business process offshoring in India alone (METTERS, VERMA; 2008). Seven years later, offshoring services generated $252 billion in revenue and employed about 4 million people globally, largely in developing countries (GEREFFI, FERNANDEZ-STARK; 2011). Since the 1960s, a growing number of companies in developed countries have transferred manufacturing operations (shoes, clothing, inexpensive electronic goods, toys, etc.) to nations with lower labor costs (GEREFFI, 2006). In the services sector, this movement began gradually modestly in the 1980s 1 Corresponding Author: Email: yedasou@unisinos.br and has grown rapidly since the 1990s. Global sourcing of knowledge services and innovation encompasses activities such as call centers, software development, marketing and sales, research and development (R&D), and legal services, among others (GEREFFI, FERNANDEZ-STARK; 2010). GSKSI is defined here as the global sourcing of knowledge services and innovation previously performed in the home country (DOH, BUNYARATAVEJ, HAHN; 2009; MANNING, MASSINI, LEWIN; 2008), such as product development, computer programming, game development, graphic design and evaluating tests for medical reports, among others. As with the aforementioned offshoring of manufacturing, we propose that GSKSI also differs from the offshoring of simpler services such as scanning or shredding of documents, or call centers that handle minor customer queries. The motivation behind offshoring these latter activities is typically similar to that of manufacturing (cutting costs), whereas there are other components involved in GSKSI, such as the Revista Eletrônica de Negócios Internacionais São Paulo, v.11, n. 2, p. 31-45, may./aug. 2015 | e-ISSN: 1980-4865 | http://internext.espm.br São Paulo, v.10, n. 2, p. 46-63, mai./ago. 2015 | e-ISSN: 1980-4865 | http://internext.espm.br © 2015 Internext | ESPM. All rights reserved! Doi: dx.doi.org/10.18568/1980-486510246-632015