Julia’s research and consultancy  work revolves around outsourcing and offshoring of services, globally distributed teams, knowledge and innovation. Before joining Aston Business School in 2012 she was Associate Professor at Warwick Business School and held a visiting position with Vrije University (Amsterdam) between 2008 and 2011.

Julia is a regular presenter in international conferences and conventions. She published her work in numerous journal including The Wall Street Journal, Communications of the ACM, MISQ Executive, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Information & Management, Journal of Information Systems, Cutter Consortium and others. She published 7 books, among them  “The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring” and “Knowledge Processes in Globally Distributed Contexts” .

Julia is the co-founder and organizer of the annual Global Sourcing Workshop that was founded in 2007. She is Senior Editor for Journal of Information Technology and on the Editorial Board of IT and People journal. She acted as guest editor for several special issues on Global Sourcing: for Journal of IT in 2008, IT and People in 2009 and IEEE Transaction of Engineering Management (2011), Journal of IT Teaching Cases (2012).

Julia has extensive experience teaching modules related to outsourcing and offshoring on MBA and Master levels and on various executive courses.

Julia’s main research areas are global sourcing of services, and globally distributed teams. Her focus has been on aspects related to managing knowledge and expertise, collaboration and coordination in these contexts.

From global sourcing perspective, ongoing research projects revolve around emerging sourcing models and trends, such as crowdsourcing, multi-sourcing and backsourcing. These research projects investigate (i) client and vendor capabilities required to successfully implement these sourcing models and initiatives, and  (ii) how to manage knowledge and expertise in various sourcing contexts to improve efficiency and outcomes of sourcing engagements. In particular, ongoing research projects include studying how to achieve innovation in outsourcing; knowledge integration between multiple parties; and studying factors that determine efficiency of outsourcing knowledge-intensive services to China.

From knowledge management perspective ongoing research projects are related to Transactive Memory System, knowledge boundaries and knowledge integration in cross-functional and globally distributed teams.

Julia Kotlarsky is Professor of Technology and Global Sourcing at Aston Business School, UK.