THE ROLE OF “BRIDGE SE”

THE ROLE OF “BRIDGE SE” IN KNOWLEDGE SHARING: A CASE STUDY OF SOFTWARE OFFSHORING FROM JAPAN TO VIETNAM
NGUYEN THU HUONG
School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1211, Japan
E-mail: thuhuong@jaist.ac.jp
UMEMOTO KATSUHIRO
School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1211, Japan
E-mail: ume@jaist.ac.jp
DAM HIEU CHI
School of Knowledge Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1211, Japan
E-mail: dam@jaist.ac.jp
This paper examines the role of Bridge SE (System Engineer) - as a coordinator - to cope with knowledge-sharing barriers between organizations in cross-cultural contexts. A case study of software offshoring from Japan to Vietnam has been conducted. We found that the enthusiasm and constructive, cooperative spirit of the client company, the adaptive capacity of the vendor company, and a good impression on the partner country promote the knowledge-sharing process. However, communication barriers, cultural barriers, differences in business manners and working competence bring challenges for knowledge-sharing. We recognized that utilizing Bridge SE is an effective way to cope with these challenges. We finally concluded that the role of Bridge SE should be studied more by both academics and practitioners.
1. Introduction
An increasing number of organizations choose offshore outsourcing as a strategic decision. According to statistics from Ventoro Institute with 5,231 executives in North America and Europe, 19% of all companies in their polls have current Offshoring strategy. And among Fortune 1000 firms, the number of firms using Offshore Strategy is 95%. The reasons why companies choose to outsource include cost savings, improved performance, and access to wider labor markets (Krishna et al., 2004).
While the traditional focus is on manufacturing offshoring, success in high technology, especially, is of more recent interest (Carmel, 2003). In the context of the global knowledge economy, major corporations are more involved with knowledge intensive work such as software development. And in fact, the successful software export nations (China, India, and Ireland) are good example of software development. Many developing nations now promote and consider software development for their own economic strategy.
As software offshoring is “knowledge intensive work”, both client (service receivers) and vendor (service providers) realize that knowledge management (KM) is an important contributor to the success of their organizations (Balaji and Ahuja, 2005; Lee, 2001; Oshri, 2007). One of the most important topics discussed among KM issues in offshoring is knowledge-sharing between clients and vendors. Other issues are knowledge transfer, knowledge retention and knowledge integration.
Our study explores the relationship between using coordinator and successful knowledge-sharing between organizations in the cross-cultural context. The term “cross-cultural context” refers to an environment in which a business is operated by members of different organizations with different capacities and professional levels of working, cultural norms of social behavior, attitudes to authority, and language issues. Among many KM issues, we choose to study knowledge-sharing because has been proved to be important for successful software offshoring projects, by supporting the communication process in a cross-cultural context.
In this paper, we adopt case study as the research strategy. In detail, the case analysis is based on our ongoing research with an offshore software service provider in Vietnam with their Japanese customers. We selected software offshoring from Japan to Vietnam as our case study because:
- Vietnam is an emerging software exporting nation which made significant gains this year, as the quality and availability of their labor force improved, and is now ranked 10th in the Global Service Local Index 2009’s .
- The Vietnamese government promotes software outsourcing industry development, and considers Japan to be the most important strategic destination for software service export.
- Japanese software developers have recently had strong interest in offshoring to Vietnam as a “China plus One” because of the increase of labor costs and competition in China, as well as some attractive features of Vietnam such as: an adaptive culture, near shore location, cultural compatibility, political stability, governmental incentives, time zone and travel time.
Our paper is organized as follows: we first give a comprehensive review of knowledge-sharing and the concept of “coordinator” in the offshore outsourcing field. The next section describes the research methodology and data collection since August 2008 regarding advantages and disadvantages that influence the knowledge-sharing process, and the role of Bridge SE to cope with knowledge-sharing barriers. Finally we describe the conclusion of our research.
2. Literature Review
2.1. Knowledge Sharing in Offshore Outsourcing
“Offshore outsourcing” and “offshoring” are often used interchangeably and incorrectly for the term “outsourcing.” However, “outsourcing is the act of transferring the work to an external party” [Power et al., 2006, p.3] while “offshore outsourcing” is, in fact, a small but important subset of outsourcing, wherein, a company outsources work to a third party in a country other than the one in which the client company is based, primarily to take advantage of lower labor costs (Nguyen et al., 2008).
De Long and Fahey (2000) defined knowledge as a product of human reflection and experience. Dependent on context, knowledge is a resource that can be located in an individual or a collective, or embedded in a routine or process. Embodied in language, stories, concepts, rules, and tools, knowledge results in an increased capacity for decision making and action to achieve some purposes. According to Polanyi (1958), knowledge has two dimensions: explicit knowledge embedded in formal rules, tools and processes that can be shared using formal, systematic language, and tacit knowledge, which includes the things that we know which are difficult to put into words.
In terms of knowledge-sharing, Hendriks (1999) stated that it is something other than but related to communication, while Cabrera (2002) emphasized its relationship to a paradigmatic social situation known as a social dilemma. In the case of offshore outsourcing, we understand that it can be divided into two types based on geographical distance: knowledge-sharing inside borders, and knowledge sharing across-borders. In the scope of this research, we focus on studying knowledge sharing across-borders, or cross-cultural knowledge sharing in offshore outsourcing.
The importance of knowledge sharing in offshore outsourcing has been discussed much in recent research. Some studies emphasized the relationship between knowledge sharing and outsourcing success, such as Lee (2001) and Kotlarsky and Oshri (2005). According to Lee (2001), knowledge-sharing is one of the major predictors of outsourcing success, and organizational capability to learn or acquire the needed knowledge from other organizations is a key source of success in knowledge sharing. Also, partnership quality is a significant factor in knowledge sharing and outsourcing success. By an in-depth ethnographic study of globally-distributed software development projects, Kotlarsky and Oshri (2005) argued that human relations issues in the form of social ties and knowledge sharing contribute to successful collaboration in distributed IS development teams, and they emphasize the importance of “rapport” and “transactive memory”. Rapport is defined as ‘the quality of the relation or connection between interactants, marked by harmony, conformity, accord, and affinity’ while transactive memory is defined as the set of knowledge possessed by group members, coupled with an awareness of who knows what.
Differing from the above research, Prikladnicki et al. (2003) identified problems that organizations have faced when going global in software development. Their research showed that one of the most difficult problems is information-sharing between teams across geographic and cultural boundaries. The interviews conducted with two software units indicated that investment in Knowledge Management (tools or activities that stimulate information sharing) minimized many obstacles to global software development. This research topic has also been discussed by Nicholson and Sahay through a case study of British software developers working with their counterparts in India. They used three types of knowledge proposed by Blacker (1995), Encoded, Encultured and Embedded Knowledge, to analyze knowledge sharing in communities of practice in the international context. According to Blacker, encoded knowledge is conveyed by signs and symbols within manuals, notations, and standards and codes of practice that need to be encoded and transmitted electronically using various ICTs. Encoded knowledge is recorded and can be accessible. It can either be structured or unstructured. Some examples are Internet, intranet, email, newsletter, etc. Encultured knowledge reflects more broadly the structures, policies, norms, traditions, rituals and values of an organization or society. Embedded knowledge is that which resides in routines, best practices, policies, programs, technologies, roles, formal procedures and methods. The study of Nicholson and Sahay concluded that these 3 types of knowledge are useful for identifying some of the barriers which may exist to the legitimacy of community learning in the international context. A key contribution of their study is showing the importance of encultured knowledge, and the means by which this can affect the legitimacy of participation in the community.
By a game theory analysis, Bandyopadhyay and Pathak (2007) argued knowledge sharing to be a strategic interaction between employees of the “host” firm and the outsourcing firm who have to share knowledge and skill sets in order to work effectively as a team, but might be naturally antagonistic toward each other. They concluded that when the degree of complementary knowledge between the employees is high, better payoffs can be achieved if the top management encourages cooperation between the employees.
2.2. Coordinator in Offshore Outsourcing
For the case of offshore outsourcing, we understand a coordinator can be a staff member of the client’s company or vendor company, and works as a middle man between two partners in cross-cultural context (as in Fig.1). The concept “coordinator” has also been named expressed by several other terms, such as Onsite Coordinator, Straddler, Envoys, Customer’s Representatives, Offshore Intermediaries, or Bridge SE.
Explaining the roles and responsibilities of participants in offshore activities, Braun (2007) emphasized the important role of Onsite Coordinator. The Onsite Coordinator is explained as the Single Point of Contact for the offshore team leaders. They coordinate all requests from the offshore staff and track the status of assignments and work packages on a daily basis. He argued that the most important role regarding communication between the onshore (project) and the offshore domain is the Single Point of Contact or the Onsite Coordinator.
Rost (2006) mentioned in his research that a major challenge for offshore software projects is the unavoidable long-distance communication. If this problem is not controlled, communication costs are likely to take up most of the potential cost savings. Following this line of argument, he proposed some tactical approaches that can help reduce the cost of communication as well as cultural distance. The Straddler (also known as Liaison) is a staff member on the vendor side, who works either for a certain time or periodically at the client’s site, and travels back and forth between client and vendor. He concluded that the Straddler significantly reduces the cultural distance between the client’s business culture and the industrialized country’s culture. The concepts of Envoy and Customer’s Representatives have also been discussed. Envoys are staff of client companies who travel between client and vendor’s country. During the periods of time when the Envoy is in the vendor company’s country, the envoy is usually embedded into the vendor’s team. Meanwhile, the Customer Representative can be staff of the client company or of an independent company that runs an office geographically close to the vendor. The duties of representatives are to take on surveillance tasks and make decisions on the customer’s behalf.









In addition to some concepts of Rost, Krishna et al. (2004) use the term ‘Cultural Bridging Staff’ to describe the role of coordinator in offshore outsourcing projects. They stated that cultural bridging staff is people who is rooted in both cultures and can “bridge” cultures. For example, people originally from India, but with higher education and long-term residence in North America, have been reposted to India as expatriate managers for offshore outsourcing projects. Research of Mahnke et al. (2008) mentioned the term “Offshore Intermediary”, a new breed of offshore ‘broker’ or ‘middleman’ providing offshore intermediation capabilities. He argued that there is a need for boundary-spanning capabilities in offshore systems development partnerships - a need that can be fulfilled by offshore intermediaries. The capabilities of a ‘middleman’ include moderating disparities in expertise, culture, and communication styles that often reduce performance in offshore relationships. The author explained that one key task of the offshore intermediary is to develop inter-firm social and intellectual capital to create interfaces allowing for inter-firm knowledge identification, knowledge sharing, and knowledge combination across company and cultural boundaries.
The term “Bridge SE” has recently been used by some Japanese scholars. According to Honda et al. (2004), a Bridge SE is a system engineer, who is in charge of bridging between client and vendor company’s staff in the project. It’s popular that Bridge SE is from the staff of the vendor side, can speak Japanese and understand Japanese business culture to get over come communication gaps. Honda explained also that “Bridge SE” is similar to the concept of “Onsite Coordinator”. However, while the main task of the Onsite Coordinator is to connect with people offsite, the Bridge SE’s role is to bridge between the vendor’s national culture and Japanese culture.
Despite some minor differences regarding functions and duties in Offshore Projects, we found that the terms: Onsite Coordinator, Straddler, Envoys, Customer’s Representatives, Offshore Intermediaries, or Bridge SE share the same characteristic: they work as a coordinator who bridges two sides across a border. Therefore they can be called “Cross-cultural Coordinator”. The term cross-cultural coordinator started to appear in some studies, but a definition of cross-cultural coordinator has not been adopted yet. Based on these terms above, cross-cultural coordinator can be understood as a coordinator who masters both languages, understands two cultures and works as a bridge to harmonize the cross-border relationship. In this research, we propose a hypothesis that there is a relationship between cross-cultural coordinator and knowledge sharing. In order to test this hypothesis, we conduct a case study of a software offshoring project from Japan to Vietnam.
3. Research Methodology
In this paper, we chose case study as the research strategy. We chose FPT Software, one of the fastest-growing companies in Vietnam's software development outsourcing industry, for our case study. Our study focuses on the software outsourcing relationship between FPT Software and their Japanese customers such as Canon IT Solutions, Hitachi, TIS and so on. This analysis is based on our ongoing research with operation group leaders in Hanoi headquarters and project managers in the Tokyo subsidiary. In detail, we study the impact of the nature of offshore outsourcing on knowledge sharing, and then explore the role of cross-cultural coordinator in the offshore project.
FPT Software is a member of FPT Corporation, the biggest IT Company in Vietnam. FPT Software now has 21 operating groups which are located in 3 the biggest cities of Vietnam (Ha Noi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh). Also, they have branches in Japan (Tokyo, Osaka), Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippine), Europe (France), the United States and Australia.
The data collection was composed of primary and secondary sources. The primary data analysis is based on our ongoing research, in which we have conducted 18 interviews with group leaders, project managers and team leaders (12 in Hanoi and 6 in Tokyo). We chose the offshore project with Japan as our case study because Japan is the biggest customer of FPT Software, with 65% FPT software production. The primary data collection includes two phases with two questionnaires; the first is on the current state of software offshoring relationship, and the knowledge-sharing practices between FPT software operation groups and Japanese partners, through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. The second is on the role of coordinator in offshore projects, through email interviews. We also visited FPT Software offices and joined some remote seminars. Secondary sources are also used: document reviews on organizational structure, IT business field and their business strategy, beyond access to home pages and, the company brochure.
4. Findings and Analysis
4.1. Case Background
FPT Software Joint Stock Company (homepage: www.fpt-soft.com) is a subsidiary of FPT Corporation, the biggest IT Company in Vietnam. During the past 20 years FPT Software has been one of the fastest-growing companies in Vietnam's software development outsourcing industry, with over 42 million USD in 2008 revenues. FPT Software employed 2,700 young and dynamic staff as of 2008. Their development centers have been certified with CMMi level 5, BS 7799-2: 2002 (ISO 27001:2005) and ISO 9001: 2000.
FPT Software has business mainly in the domains of Banking and Financial Services, Utilities, Telecom, Manufacturing, Insurance, Government and Public Services, IT Services, Retail, and Infrastructure. They provide Software services such as: Software Development, Maintenance, ERP Implementation, Quality Assurance Testing, Migration Services, Business Process Outsourcing, and Embedded Systems Development.
Their business segmentation focuses mainly on the overseas market. The country that has the most customers is Japan which, with 19 clients, occupies 65% FPT software production by revenue. Other areas are Asia Pacific (13%), EU (10%), US (10%) and the domestic market with only 6% of production.
The main competencies include: Large pool of young staff, Multi-lingual, and International Presence. FPT Software is among the 50 VN Best Employers , said to be the largest pool of software engineers in Vietnam with a competitive turnover rate (8% in 2006) and comprehensive training process. FPT Software recognized human capital is a core feature in developing and executing organizational strategy, as an available resource for large scale projects with high motivation and fast learning. By providing opportunities to the entire staff to develop their work-related knowledge and skills, they expect to increase effectiveness and also make a richer contribution to the work of FPT Software. As a software development firm, FPT Software strives to be a learning organization, with a responsibility to encourage and support learning throughout its constituent departments. Most staff in FPT Software can speak English. Although the level of ability is vary, English is the most widely-used language at FPT Software. In addition, the company provides its staff with a number of English training courses, as well as an English club to encourage English communication within the company. The third core value contributing to success for FPT Software is International Presence, which has been created based on these above 2 core values. Communications between FPT Software staff and customers are conducted in English, French, or Japanese. This includes all project documentation, e-mails, phone conversations, and Net meetings. There were only 350 staff in FPT Software in 2003, but this number increased nearly 3 times in 2 years, up to 1000 members in 2005, and up to 2700 members in 2009. With this number, FPT Software is really a large pool of young, talented, IT professionals. 90% of these employees graduated from the three most well known IT universities in Vietnam, the remaining 10% graduated from a series of FPT Aptech IT Professional Training Centers.
FPT Software has 21 operation groups (OG) which are located in the 3 main cities of Vietnam: Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City. In this research, we present our data collection from 3 OGs, which mainly supply software offshore services for the Japanese market, and 3 project managers who are working in FPT Japan, a subsidiary of FPT Software in Tokyo. Japanese customers include Canon IT Solutions, Hitachi, TIS, Nippon Steel, Toshiba, and Fujitsu Software.
4.2. Knowledge Sharing in Offshore Outsourcing
Knowledge which has been shared between offshore teams of FPT Software and Japanese customers includes:
- Explicit knowledge: requirements, technical documents, specification information, and test reports. This knowledge is easy to share by using advanced ICTs, one of the strengths of software development field. .
- Tacit knowledge: Question and Answer (Q&A) regarding requirement and proposal, common rules, cultural match, post-mortem analysis results, and the new ideas of engineers, project managers, Bridge SEs and other members from both FPT Software side and Japanese customers’ companies. This tacit knowledge is said to be difficult to share and manage.
In this part, we analyze some advantage and disadvantage that impact on knowledge -sharing between Japanese customers and FPT’s offshore project members.
The enthusiasm and constructive, cooperative spirit of Japanese customers is one of the biggest advantages that promote the knowledge-sharing process. Japanese partners have a desire to send a part of their software development work to Vietnam. Although they are warned that the software offshore industry in Vietnam is in the starting stage, they are ready to sign contracts and agree to educate and train Vietnamese engineers from the first stage.
We highly appreciate the cooperation and patience of Japanese customers. In the early stage when we hadn’t had any experience on offshore work, they still signed contracts. This is the biggest difference between Japanese and American customers. With the American customers, when we make mistakes, they cancel the contract and will not sign another anymore. With Japanese customers, when we make mistakes, we don’t lose the contract. Instead, they teach us step by step from technical details, and project management techniques to Japanese business manners. (Tran Dang Hoa, Group Leader of Group No.11)
Another advantage that makes knowledge-sharing smooth is the good impression of each other. Vietnamese engineers are known by Japanese people as hard-working and skillful. Also, Japanese people have a good impression of Vietnamese people due to similar characteristics, such as Chinese character culture, rice eating and chopstick using culture, Mahayana Buddhism and so on. Meanwhile, Japan is known by Vietnamese people for its economic growth after the war, the Official Development Assistance (ODA) from Japan to Vietnam, and the good quality of Japanese products. Influenced by both Chinese and French culture in its history, Vietnamese people are known as an adaptive people. Therefore, this adaptive capacity makes Japanese customers believe that Vietnamese engineers will get along well with Japanese culture soon. Also, Vietnamese engineers have some advantages when they study Japanese:
Influenced by not only Chinese culture but also Chinese language, many official Vietnamese words have originated from Chinese words. Therefore, we have some advantages when we study Japanese, which is based mainly on Chinese characters (Kanji). Besides, there are many phrases in Vietnamese which have pronunciation similar to Japanese phrases. It makes it easier for us to remember Japanese. (Tran Xuan Khoi, Group Leader of Group No. 21)
Because most offshore work from Japan to Vietnam are simple modules and projects of small scale, the high security and intellectual property rights issues are not a serious problem. And the antagonism toward each other doesn’t happen in the case of the outsourcing relationship between Japan and Vietnam.
In general, there is no friction between us and Japanese customers. The Japanese partners are always ready to share their experience and help us to get used to the work. And the engineers in our projects are eager to receive their knowledge, and experience. We think that they don’t worry about losing their jobs in the future if their companies outsource all of the work. The reason may come from the lack of IT engineers in the Japanese market. (Nguyen Vu Hung, a Bridge SE - team leader )
Beside advantages as above; communication barriers, cultural barriers, difference in business manners and working competence are some disadvantages that slow down the knowledge sharing process. First, the communication barriers occur when two partners come from different countries. In some cases, English can be used as a common language. However, in this case, Japanese customers don’t like to speak English because they are not confident while fews Vietnamese software engineers can speak Japanese. 100% of interviewees agreed that communication gap is the biggest challenge. The solutions are utilizing coordinators (communicators, Bridge SE); and employing project manager who can directly communicate with the partners in Japanese. Another disadvantage is cultural barriers. For instance, the Japanese clients tend to be relatively clear about separation between work and home, while these issues are tightly integrated in Vietnam. Vietnamese set high value on the relationship between person and person, especially the relationship with family. In another context, while the culture of apology is popular in Japan, it is not common in Vietnam. Being reminded of some mistakes, or hearing complaints about the quality of a product, instead of saying an apology, Vietnamese partners often defend their mistakes, although in their mind they understand they are at fault.
Moreover, differences in business manners have been mentioned by many interviewees. Regarding some problems, which Japanese customers suppose to be common sense, Vietnamese service providers don’t have the same idea.
There is a basic difference in business manners of two partners. Japanese customers deal with the work carefully, in detailed, and with a high sense of responsibility, while Vietnamese people often deal with work with an easy-going spirit, rough and ready manner, carelessly. For another example, we were late for an appointment with a Japanese customer. The Japanese partner thought that, as common sense, we would inform and apologize for being late before the appointment time. Meanwhile, we apologized when we came. (Nguyen Tan Minh, a Bridge SE – project manager)
Some mistakes or new issues occur when we conduct offshore work. In these cases, we inform the customers after we finish solving problems, while we need to inform them one by one as soon as possible, and in detail as much as possible. This is a very big gap that hasn’t been solved after many years doing outsourcing for Japanese customers. (Tran Xuan Khoi, Group Leader of Group No. 21)
Difference in individual competence of software engineers also influences the success of knowledge sharing. There is a gap in IT skills, working capacity, and project management experience between software engineers of Vietnam and Japan.
Our group often has to work over time. The gaps in IT skills, working capacity, and project management skills between Japanese teams and our teams make us take much more time to make progress. Moreover, Japanese engineers themselves work over time. This makes our group always stressed with overtime work continuously. (Nguyen Huu Duc, Group Leader of Group No. 5).

We recognized that the communication barrier, the cultural barrier, the differences in business manners and working competence slow down the knowledge-sharing process. Although Japanese customers are very helpful in reducing the communication gap or the knowledge sharing limitations, it takes time for both sides to get acquainted with each other. In the next part, we analyze some solutions to deal with these challenges, focusing on the role of coordinators - especially Bridge SE.
4.3. Coordinators in Offshore Outsourcing
Training courses on Japanese language, Japanese business manners, building a knowledge base about each customer, on the job training and utilizing coordinators are some popular solutions to cope with knowledge sharing barriers. However, the first solutions take time, while utilizing coordinator can be effective at once. It is a fact that the number of Japanese-speaking Vietnamese IT engineers has been limited, and few can speak Japanese at a basic level, but not enough to discuss specialized work. Therefore, utilizing a coordinator who can speak Japanese is a short-term solution much used by practitioners.
Table 1: Coordinators in Offshore Software Project
Communicator Bridge SE
Main duties - translate technical requirements and other documents from Japanese to Vietnamese
- work as an interpreter in meetings with customers - get requirements from customers and deliver to offshore team
- manage project such as Q&A, progress report, review detailed design, review test case
Requirements Japanese skill - Japanese skill
- IT skills
- Communication skill
- Project management skill
- 3-5 years experience as a system engineer

Other - work with offshore project teams in Vietnam

- often is a staff member of FPT Software - work independent of offshore project teams, travel back and forth between Japan and Vietnam
- often is a staff member of FPT Software

Two types of coordinators popular in Offshore Projects with Japanese customers are “Bridge SE” and “Communicator”. These roles are explained in Table 1. Also, Onsiter is also used to support Bridge SE in the technical design phase. The Onsiter is an engineer of FPT Software, who is sent to Japan and works with the Bridge SE. However, onsiter is not used as often as other coordinators, just in cases when the Bridge SE does not have good IT skills, or on complicated large-scale projects.
All managers agreed that among 3 types of coordinators, Bridge SE is the most useful actor due to their involvement in the project. In fact, a lot of Bridge SEs work as project managers or team leaders. Our data collection showed that all projects need the presence of a Bridge SE. This is explained by the fact that most IT engineers in projects can’t speak Japanese and don’t speak English very well, while Japanese customers don’t want to speak English. There is no other way except using coordinators who can speak Japanese. With IT skills, communication skills and other capacities, Bridge SE (System Engineer) works as not only a general coordinator but also a member involved in the offshore project, and improves the quality of projects. The role of Bridge SE is especially important in this context: Japan is the biggest customer of FPT Software (with 65% FPT Software production).
Evidence showing that the quality of communication between two partners has been improved with the presence of Bridge SE are explained in Table 2. Communication gap is considered the biggest barrier that both offshore project member and Japanese have to face. Before having a Bridge SE, two partners communicate directly or through a communicator. Directly communicating takes time due to the limitations in Japanese efficiency of Vietnamese offshore groups. Also, the communicator couldn’t coordinate effectively using only Japanese skill without IT skills. This linked to a series of problems, such as the Vietnamese partner not understanding the requirements of the Japanese customer, or understanding at an inaccurate level, and the Japanese customer receiving responses late.
At the beginning, when we didn’t use a Bridge SE, the Japanese customer couldn’t understand what we were doing, and was very nervous. Our reports were called difficult to understand, and the information was not as detail as they expecedt. After using Bridge SE, the customer gradually understands our response. However, this depends mostly on the efficiency of Bridge SE. (Tran Xuan Khoi, Group Leader of Group No. 21)

Table 2: The communication quality before and after utilizing Bridge SE
Before After
Means of communication Directly
Use Communicator Directly
Use Communicator
Use Bridge SE
Content exchange Misunderstanding
Inaccurate understanding Gradually understanding

Response Late and insufficient Quick and sufficient
Attitude J: fretful, nervous, upset
V: Stressed, unconfident J: Sympathetic and cooperative
V: confident
Japanese satisfaction regarding efficiency Dissatisfied Satisfied

5. Conclusion
In this research, we gave a comprehensive review of research on knowledge sharing and coordinators in the offshore outsourcing field. A case study of an offshoring software project from Japan to Vietnam has been conducted through 3 Operation Groups of FPT Software, with two main topics: knowledge sharing and coordinators in the offshore outsourcing relationship. We analyzed some advantages and disadvantages that influence the success of knowledge-sharing between two partners. We finally argue the importance of the role of Bridge SE to cope with the challenges of knowledge sharing.
We recognized the knowledge-sharing in offshore outsourcing from Japan to Vietnam doesn’t share the same characteristics as other offshore outsourcing situation. We found that some advantages, such as enthusiasm and the constructive, cooperative spirit of Japanese customers, good impressions of each other, the adaptive capacity of Vietnamese people, studying Japanese language promote the knowledge sharing process. However, communication barriers, cultural barriers, differences in business manners and working competence slow down the knowledge-sharing process. We finally point out that Bridge SE (System Engineer) has been utilized to fill communication gaps, and thereby, to cope with knowledge sharing challenges. The next step of this research is to study how cross-cultural coordinators - such as Bridge SE - are managed from a Knowledge Management point of view, which has yet to receive adequate research attention.
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