Building the business case for diversity in offshoring

Offshoring inevitably leads to increased cultural diversity in work relations. Most companies perceive this increased diversity as a risk, a problem that needs to be minimized or remedied for offshoring to succeed. Building on the business case for diversity management literature we propose an alternative positive view of cultural diversity in the context of offshore relationships. We suggest that the increased cultural diversity that offshoring brings can actually be an opportunity companies should recognize and leverage in order to foster business performance. We specifically argue that under certain conditions related to the organizational context, type of project, teams, and tasks offshored, offshore projects driven by innovation might actually hold a unique competitive advantage through the utilization of their team cultural diversity.