Anirban Sarma

Outsourcing Publishing Services to India: a Social Investigation of the Service Relation Anirban Sarma

India is among the world?s top BPO destinations. While most discussions focus on the outsourcing of software services and the call centre phenomenon, it is virtually unknown that the country is also the global hub for outsourced book publishing services. Trends show that India?s capabilities for serving academic, scientific and technical publishers are the most highly developed. But outsourcing is about much more than cutting costs, or improving service and quality. As overseas clients and Indian suppliers discover, the service relation is ultimately a social one. Both parties bring to it their cultural constitution, their desire for control or a degree of creative freedom, their differing perceptions about the outsourced work, their sense of their own worth, and sometimes, their personal prejudices. With certain academic publishers in the UK and publishing services vendors in India as its field of study, and combining academic theory with empirical findings, this book explores the attitudes and assumptions that could make or break the service relation.