Managing meta‐learning in offshore software development environments

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the current glocal (global and local) environment to answer the following research questions: How does the glocal environment influence software exporting industries in India? How is the evolving “sticky” knowledge from individuals and teams assimilated into organizational knowledge repositories? What management practices have been learnt and applied for advancement of knowledge portfolios in the offshore software business market? Design/methodology/approach – An interpretivist research design is used to gain insights into organizational learning processes adopted by offshore software vendors for assimilating evolving knowledge into knowledge repositories. Findings – This paper describes the influence of the current glocal environment on software exporting industries in India and presents a model for organizational learning to assimilate knowledge and build effective representations of emerging knowledge artifacts. The authors employ the concept of meta‐learning (or “learning about learning”) to analyze the recursive nature of organizational learning processes. Practical Implications – The proposed model of meta‐learning explains how software organizations build on individual and team competencies to build core competencies. The model helps us to understand how organizations advance their learning processes and upgrade their knowledge repositories. Originality/value – The paper offers new perspectives on how organizations reflexively monitor their knowledge processes to advance their knowledge portfolios. It identifies adhocratic and bureaucratic management processes for assimilating the evolving “sticky” knowledge from individuals into organizational knowledge repositories. This paper contributes to the growing body of literature that emphasizes ongoing learning from individual to collective level in the knowledge industry sector.