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Erran Carmel
Erran Carmel

 

Professor Carmel's area of expertise is globalization of technology. He studies global software teams, offshoring of information technology, and emergence of software industries around the world.

His 1999 book Global Software Teams was the first on this topic and is considered a landmark in the field. His second book Offshoring Information Technology came out in 2005 and is in third printing.

He has written over 80 articles, reports, and manuscripts. He consults and speaks to industry and professional groups.

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 2008-2009 he is on leave as the Orkand Chaired Professor at the University of Maryland, University College. He has been a Visiting Professor at Haifa University (Israel) and University College Dublin (Ireland).

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.



Books

Offshoring Information Technology
Sourcing and Outsourcing to a Global Workforce
co-authored with Paul Tjia © 2005

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

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.







Articles

Emergence of software industries around the world

Offshore Sourcing of IT Work: Firm Strategies and outsourcing contracts

Global Software Teams

Cases for Teaching

  • "PanGenesis: A Creative Costa Rican Approach to the Persistent IT Labor Crunch." . Full Case - This case is about a Costa Rican IT Services firm exploring new workforce models to overcome the tight IT labor markets. August, 2007.
  • "Finding a niche in the global software marketplace: The case of the Peruvian firm LOLIMSA, Technologias para Salud." Full Case - This is a short teaching case about a Peruvian software product firm that is exporting niche software products. December 2005.
  • "Sheen Software Systems Considers China for Offshore I.T. Outsourcing." Full Case - This is a short teaching case about a small American firm considering offshore work. November, 2003.


Other Software Development Topics

Small is beautiful: a study of packaged software development teams. in Journal of High Technology Management Research, Spring, 1997...... Customer-developer links in software development. . Communications of the ACM , May, 1995. Cycle-time in packaged software firms. Journal of Product Innovation Management . March,1995...... A process model for packaged software development,. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management , February, 1995....... "Participatory Design and Joint Application Design: a transatlantic comparison," Communications of the ACM , June, 1993. ..... Carmel has also published in Decision Sciences, Journal of Management Information Systems, and others.

Editorial

Carmel serves on the editorial boards of the journals:   Communications of the Association of Information Systems, MIS Quarterly-Executive, Journal of Information Technology for Development, Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, Journal of Global Information Technology Management,   Information Technology & People, and others



Teaching
Carmel teaches the following courses:


Media


Speaking

Selected speaking engagements:
  • 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; São 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 für Sozialforschung , Berlin , March, 2001.
  • He has also been an invited speaker at Motorola, Xerox, Baxter, American Management Systems, and others.
  • Carmel has been a guest speaker in university classes in: Pudong University ( China ), European School of Management ( ESCP-EAP , France ), Erasmus ( Netherlands ), Marquette (USA), University of California at Irvine (USA), and others.


Professor
Information Technology Dept
Kogod School of Business
American University
Washington DC, USA



»voice: +1 202-885-1928
»email: carmel@american.edu



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