A new book written by Ron Hira, who received his Ph. D. from SPP in 2002 and is now a public policy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, and his brother Anil, a political scientist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, has received considerable media attention since its release on May 30, 2005. Titled "Outsourcing America: What’s Behind Our National Crisis and How Can We Reclaim American Jobs?" it looks at the practice and impact of outsourcing, or sending American jobs to other countries—a hot topic in the US.

Covering the book in a brief Washington Post write-up, Jonathan Krim wrote, "Is the shortage of U.S. students trained in computer engineering attributable to many of them avoiding the discipline as those jobs are sent overseas at lower wages?This is one of many intriguing questions posed by university professors Ron Hira and Anil Hira in ‘Outsourcing America.’....As a primer on the wrenching outsourcing debate, the book is thorough and easy to grasp."

Hira himself has appeared on television outlets like Lou Dobbs’s CNN show and on more than thirty radio programs around the country to discuss his book. When he was recently interviewed for the Sunday Business section of The New York Times, Hira said, "There's nothing that can be done to stop [outsourcing]. The question is, how do we adapt to it and deal with the negative effects? Nobody has done anything on the policy front. We've more or less ignored it. We need to take some steps to deal with this new reality."

While at GMU, Hira investigated electronic commerce technology adoption in Newport News Shipbuilding's supply chain for his thesis. The results had implications for federal government policy where the adoption of similar technologies had been mandated for government suppliers.