ABSTRACT
This book started with the observation that the rapid rise of offshore services production creates profound changes in the economic, social and even the physical landscape of countries around the world, and in India and parts of East and Southeast Asia in particular. Enabled by the disintegration of services production, emergent global services production networks assimilate new, previously (semi- )peripheral places into the global economy and offer a range of novel opportunities to their economic agents. A new international division of labour can be seen to take shape, influenced by such factors as the local availability of particular skills, cultural affinities and cost advantages. With the number of jobs involved in India, East Asia and Southeast Asia alone currently running in the millions, and with future numbers possibly being multiple times larger than that, it is understandable that there is increasing attention for the potential of services offshoring as a strategy for development for emerging economies.
