Comparing Chinese and the Indian Software MNCs: Domestic and Export Market Strategies and their Interplay
Jorge Niosi & F. Ted Tschang
#2008-050
China and India are emerging as major new entrants in the international
software industry. Both are rapidly learning through outsourcing with
multinational enterprises from advanced nations. Yet, their paths to
this dynamic sector are very different. Chinese software firms have
focused on their domestic market by working with foreign MNCs, while
they move cautiously abroad. Indian firms, despite already being large,
continue to expand overseas as well as to climb the value chain. We show
that a macro perspective on the global movement of work can be gained by
utilizing concepts from different approaches to the MNC. At the same
time, the innovation systems perspective is necessary to explain the
foundations of the industry. The paper provides hypotheses and performs
an initial validation of them. It concludes that the
internationalization and learning processes are somewhat different in
the Chinese and Indian MNCs, and provides explanations for the different
patterns.
Key words: Outsourcing, software industry, industrial development,
multinational enterprise
JEL Classification: P45, O14, O32, L23
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
ISSN 1871-9872