Software Outsourcing Subcontracting and its Impacts: An Empirical Investigation

China now is one of the most important places where software outsourcing businesses are flourishing. H owever, the subcontracting in the current software outsourcing practices has not received enough attentions. This research attempts to further the understanding on this issue. Mixed empi rical research approaches were used to explore the xtent and the impacts of the outsourcing subcontracting. The findings sug gest the subcontracting widely exists in current Ch ina outsourcing industry. Its major enabling factors were also iden tified. While subcontracting provides the industry with specialized services as well as organizational and managerial flexibilit y in a low cost way, it also introduces some negati ve influences. Four future trends are also addressed in this paper.