ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that the discourses and practices of certification operate within the 'offshore' as devices to imagine and participate in the globalization of the industry. It suggests that the processes and procedures involved in International Standards Organization (ISO) and Capability Maturity Models (CMM) certifying regimes are conceived of as regulatory practices that form an emerging form of governance. Within the offshore industry, CMM and ISO have become symbolic reference points that are used to indicate specific awareness and knowledge regarding 'Western' organization styles and 'professional' practices. The chapter focuses on field research and interviews conducted with owner/managers of firms, project managers, employees and industrial groups that are active in the offshore outsourcing industry in St Petersburg, Russia. The complexity of what 'the market' is and how it is assumed to coordinate offshore software outsourcing is revealed by examining how certification interacts with, and constitutes, ideas of the market from the view of Russian software firms.
