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Outsourcing in Palestinian IT Sector: A Qualitative Study

Palestinian IT sector is a young and promising sector. Software outsourcing plays a major contribution in it where the local companies offer outsourcing services as a major role of their business model. A comprehensive set of studies can be found in the literature discussing motivations and challenges of outsourcing in general. However, there are no existing studies that target outsourcing in the Palestinian IT sector. We conducted an exploratory multiple-case study in a real Palestinian industrial contexts. Our study involved four software outsourcing companies and aimed to explore the motivational factors and challenges of outsourcing in Palestine. We argue that the practice of software outsourcing is a vital driver for development companies in the Palestinian IT sector and is driven by quality, followed by cost and lastly by the geographical distances. These elements form the three main motivational factors that foster software outsourcing in the Palestinian IT sector. We also revealed that the geographical location of Palestine made it a good outsourcing destination for outsourcing projects. Finally, we propose a model for outsourcing in the Palestinian software sector. We believe that our results can be beneficial for both practitioners and researchers.