This essay reports the results of a survey of IT exporters from Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. The survey identifies the key competitive advantages and disadvantages of Central European IT companies as they compete for outsourcing work in the US and Western European...

Economists have analyzed offshore outsourcing mainly from the perspective of transaction costs and procurement decisions. In the current phase of globalization offshoring practice increasingly involves high value added activities such as design and R&D. Today’s globalized R&D system embraces...