The Emerging Brazilian I.T. Industry and its Time-Zone Proximity Advantage.

Brazil has been emerging as an offshore destination for offshore IT software and services. The country already had a strong domestic base of IT clients to global companies. One of the competitive factors is time zone location. Brazil has now positioned itself as easy for collaboration because of time zone overlap with its primary partners in North America and Europe. In this paper we examine whether time zone proximity is indeed an advantage for software development by conducting a country-level field study of the Brazilian IT industry using a cross section of firms. The results provide some support for the claims of proximity benefits. The Brazil-to-North dyads use moderate timeshifting that is perceived as comfortable and advantageous for both sides of these dyads. The voice coordination that the time overlap permits helps address coordination challenges and foster relationships. These and other practices relating to time zones are described in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]