Professor Carmel studies the globalization of technology work: global teams, global sourcing, and the emergence of software industries around the world.

In 2011 he completed his 3rd book. This one is about the special issues that time zone separation imposes on global coordination of work. “I’m Working While They’re Sleeping: Time Zone Separation Challenges and Solutions” is co-authored with his colleague Alberto Espinosa.  Carmel’s 1999 book "Global Software Teams" was the first on this topic and is considered a landmark in the field, helping many organizations take their first steps into distributed tech work. His second book "Offshoring Information Technology" came out in 2005 and became popular as outsourcing began to be taught in business schools around the world.

He has written over 100 articles, reports, and manuscripts. He consults and speaks to industry and professional groups. Here is a video of a 2013 talk at IESE on global coordination across time zones. He also writes a Blog.

He is a tenured full Professor at the Information Technology department, Kogod School of Business at American University. In the 1990s he co-founded and led the program in Management of Global Information Technology. In 2005-2008 he was department Chair. In 2009 he was awarded the International Business Professorship in 2012 he was named Kogod UPS Scholar. He has been a Visiting Professor at Haifa University (Israel) and University College Dublin (Ireland). In 2008-2009 he was the Orkand Endowed Chaired Professor at the University of Maryland University College. He is also a Faculty Associate at the Center for Information Technology and the Global Economy (CITGE).

He received his Ph.D., in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona; his MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley.

I’m Working While They’re Sleeping: Time Zone Separation Challenges and Solutions with J. Alberto Espinosa © 2011 Distance is dead. Time zones are not. When millions of knowledge workers are coordinating daily with partners around the globe, the key coordination challenge is time zone separation. Yet many overlook the ways time zones can influence their productivity. The authors distill more than a decade of research to address the time zone challenges in approachable and  practical prose with cases, stories, and actionable items. Discover why timeshifting is the key solution for time zone challenged teams. Recognize why scattertime may be the work mode of the future. Learn why both Follow-the-Sun and Round-the-Clock can leverage time zones but in very different ways. Understand how to think strategically–not just tactically—about time zones.  He spoke about this topic at TEDx (watch) and was interviewed about this on Globalist Radio (listen).

Offshoring Information Technology: Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce co-authored with Paul Tjia © 2005 (pub: Cambridge University Press) The decision to source software development to an overseas firm (offshoring) is looked at frequently in simple economic terms - it's cheaper, and skilled labor is easier to find. In practice, however, offshoring is fraught with difficulties. As well as the considerable challenge of controlling projects at a distance, there are differences in culture, language, business methods, politics, and many other issues to contend with. This book explains how to put offshoring into practice, avoid the pitfalls, and develop effective working relationships. See book review in Computerworld [go to middle of page]

Global Software Teams: Collaborating Across Borders and Time Zones © 1999 (pub: Prentice Hall) A pioneering book on virtual teaming and global software development that has been cited hundreds of times in studies, used in dozens of classes around the world, used as a guidebook by managers in dozens of technology companies, and used as a quick primer by technocrats learning about how ICTs can make a difference to their emerging nations.

• Managing the Human Cloud, in MIT Sloan Management Review, written by Kaganer, Carmel, Hirschheim and Olsen. Winter 2013 Issue
• Outsourcing: Buying IT Services from Remote Domestic Suppliers. Written by Lacity, Carmel, and Rottman, in IEEE Computer, 2011. This was expanded in 2012 and became an IEEE Ready Note, available on Amazon, called Rural Outsourcing: Buying IT Services from Remote Domestic Suppliers.

Emergence of software industries around the world

• The Maturing Chinese Offshore IT Services Industry: it takes 10 years to sharpen a sword. Written by Carmel, Gao, and Zhang, MIS Quarterly Executive, 2008.   Reprinted as book chapter in China 's Emerging ITO and BPO Capabilities edited by Leslie Willcocks and Mary Lacity, Sage Publications, 2010.
• Why nearshore means that distance matters . By Carmel and Abbott. Communications of the ACM, (CACM), October, 2007.
• Narratives that Software Nations Tell Themselves. Communications of the Association of Information Systems. By Carmel and Eisenberg 2006.
• Three articles on the "New Software Exporting Nations" in a special issue of The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries, Vol, 13, May 2003. Full articles:
  1. Taxonomy of New Software Exporting Nations
  2. The New Software Exporting Nations: Impacts on National Well Being Resulting from their Software Exporting Industries
  3. The New Software Exporting Nations: Success Factors
• Israel 's Silicon Wadi: the forces behind cluster formation. Written by Catherine De Fontenay and Carmel . Appeared in the book by Bresnahan, T. Gambardella, A. and Saxenian, A. (editors) Building High Tech Clusters , Cambridge University Press, 2004. The Full chapter appeared earlier as Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) article number 00-40.

•   Is the World Really Flat? A Look at Offshoring in an Online Programming Marketplace , Written by Gefen and Carmel , Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ), 32(2), 2008.
• Small Firms and Offshore Software Outsourcing: High Transaction Costs and their Mitigation. Written by Carmel and Brian Nicholson . Journal of Global Information Management 13(3), 2005.
• The Maturation of Offshore Sourcing of IT Work, Written by Carmel and Ritu Agarwal, Management Information Systems Quarterly - Executive , June 2002, Volume 1, Issue 2. Voted one of 10 best MISQE articles. An epilogue and notes on stage models appears here.

• Vehicle Telematics at an Italian Insurer: New Auto Insurance Products and a New Industry Ecosystem, written by Vaia, Carmel, DeLone, Trautsch, and Menichetti. MIS Quarterly Executive, 11: 3 (2012).
•   Unlocking the Business Potential of Virtual Worlds, written by Nevo S., Nevo, D. Carmel, E. in Sloan Management Review, Spring 2011.

Cases for Teaching

• Information & Technology (MBA core course)
• The Edge of IT (undergraduate core course)
• Future & Foresight (MBA class). This is one of the few futures courses in any business school.
• Outsourcing & Offshoring. Carmel was one of the first in the world to teach a university class on offshoring/outsourcing (in Ireland in 2005 and later at American University that same year).
• Nations, Policy, and Information Technology. This was Carmel’s signature course for many years. In the early years of the internet it was a popular public repository of ~100 country studies titled "The Landscape of Information Technology" See a short article describing this class is in Journal of IT Education. Unfortunately, AU took down the public repository in 2012 due to its old architecture. Here is a snapshot of the repository on Wayback.
• International Electronic Commerce. When the internet enabled commerce, Carmel was one of the first to teach a class on the topic in early 1996.  
• Global Collaborative Technology / Virtual Teams.
• Economics of Information Goods

• Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Invited seminar on The impact of collaboration across time zones on the New World of Work, January 2013.
• IESE Business School, Barcelona. Invited lecture on the 10 Things Every Manager Needs to Know About Working Across Time Zones, January 2013.
• 3rd sourcing workshop, Ca' Foscari University Venice, Italia. Keynote on impact sourcing September, 2012
• National Science Foundation workshop on global engineering Arlington, Virginia, USA Invited talk on: Follow the sun and other fables of global work, May, 2012
• Inauguration in global software engineering at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. Keynote: Ten Things Software Engineers Need To Know About Time Zones. December, 2011
• PMI Brazil, Porto Alegre, Brazil   Keynote: The 10 Things Every Project Manager Needs To Know About Time Zones. September, 2011
  
• Infosys Connect 2011, Las Vegas, Panelist: Challenges in Distributed Software Development, August, 2011
• TEDx,  Georgetown University, Washington D.C.  The Internet and time zones. March, 2011
• Governance delle ralazioni di outsourcing, Universita degli Studi di Roma, Invited keynote on: Microsourcing: The next sourcing frontier. March, 2011.
• Warwick Business School,  University of Warwick  (UK)   on  The Impact Of Time Zone Differences in the Global IT Industry December  2010
• Center for Science & Tech Policy: George Mason University.  (USA)  on  The Landscape of Offshoring and the Role of Time Zone Differences in the Global IT Industry, October 2010
• International Conference on Global Software Engineering, ICGSE   on Implementing Agile Software Development across Time Zones,  August 2010
• Pontifícia Universidade do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS ) / Technopuc ( Porto Alegre Brazil) on Brazil's position in coordination across time zones, May 2010
• INFORTE workshop (Jyvaskyla, Finland) on Global software development and offshoring, speaker on two topics: Coordination across time zones and on The landscape of nations and offshoring; August, 2009.
• SAP Research Labs-Israel Tel Aviv, Workshop leader on Managing, coordinating, and communicating in a distributed environment, Feb, 2009
• Universita Degli Studi Di Salerno, Managing Outsourcing Relationships and New Governance Models. Salerno, Italy; Invited speaker on Micro-sourcing, Multi-sourcing and Governance. Oct. 2008.
• 6th Caribbean Ministerial Strategic Seminar, Barbados, Invited speaker on Offshoring - implications for the Caribbean, October, 2008.
• Israel Business @60. Co-chair of this two-day conference at American University . Also chaired the panel on Technology, Innovation, and Start-Ups. March 2008.
• International Conference on Global Software Engineering Munich , Germany , keynote speaker on Reflections on a Decade of Studying Global Software Engineering ;August 2007.
• International Offshoring & Nearshoring Symposium . Vienna , Austria , invited speaker on Distance Still Matters: Nearshoring & Time Differences, June 2007.
• Costa Rica Technology Insight 2007, San Jose , Costa Rica , invited speaker on Nearshoring 2.0, March, 2007.
• NYU-IBM Workshop on Global Sourcing , New York , invited speaker on The Stubborn Problem of Coordination Across Time Zones, January, 2007.
• The Norwegian Network on ICT and Development : Annual workshop at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim , Norway , invited keynote on Offshoring to Developing Nations: Current landscape & policy questions, Nov 2006.
• Jiaotong University, Beijing, invited seminar on Configurations of Global Software Development. May 2006.
• University of Wisconsin, Madison, invited talk on Israeli High-tech vs. Indian high-tech. Apr 2006.
• Global Services Conference (CMP Inc.), sourcing strategies, New York City, panelist on "How Technology Is Flattening Global Business" Feb 2006.
• International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Invited keynote on Narratives that Software Nations Tell Themselves Cross Cultural Research in Information Systems workshop, Las Vegas, Dec 2005.
• 4th International Peruvian Software Industry Congress, Invited keynote on Offshoring, Software Exports and the Place of Peru November, 2005.
• Infosys, Bangalore, India. Seminar as Visiting Research Fellow on the topic "Time Separation at Infosys," July 2005.
• IBM Research Lab New Delhi , India. Invited seminar on Distributed Software Teams: Distance Matters, July 2005.
• GPI Offshore Seminar Vught , Netherlands. Invited speaker on Distance matters in offshoring, June 2005.
• University of Limerick , ISERC: Irish Software Engineering Research Consortium  Limerick , Ireland . Invited colloquium keynote on Distance Matters, June 2005.
• London Business School , England . Invited speaker at the Emerging Markets Seminar Series, on the topic National Software Myths, May, 2005.
• I DO 2004 (International Developers Opportunities), conference on Brazilian software industry strategies, invited keynote speaker on the topic of Offshoring, Software Exports and the Place of Brazil; Sao Paulo, Brazil, December 2004.
• Russian Outsourcing Software Summit , invited speaker on The Views On Offshore Outsourcing From Inside Washington D.C.: The Politicians, The Press, The Public, St. Petersburg, Russia, June 2004.
• National Software Summit : IT Workforce Workshop , invited panelist on Global Sourcing, Virginia , March, 2004.
• Society for Information Management , Offshore Outsourcing: Strategic Issues and Implications, Moderator and Speaker, Virginia, January, 2004.
• Global Intellectual Property Project, (which Carmel co-founded) Chair of the workshop on "Patenting Business Methods: is the US patent system bad for Business?" at American University, April 2003.
• Romanian International Outsourcing Conference , Keynote speaker, The Global Picture of Software and Services Outsourcing Bucharest, Romania, April, 2003.
• Russian Software Outsourcing Summit , St. Petersburg , Russia , June 2002.
• The Social Implications of Computers in Developing Nations Conference, IFIP working group 9.4; Bangalore, India , May 2002.
• Symposium on Trends in Offshore Outsourcing. University of Manchester , England ; May 2001.
• University of Victoria , Canada . Lansdowne distinguished lecturer, April 2001.
• International Workshop on Global Software Outsourcing: The solution to the IT skills gap? Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung, Berlin , March, 2001.