Outsourcing and the changing nature of work (original) (raw)

Mitigating the Adversity of Outsourcing: Outsourcing from the Employee’s Perspective

Communications of the Iima, 2014

This paper explores how outsourcing activities and decisions put the well-being of the remaining employees at risk, ultimately affecting productivity and creating further costs to the employer. It highlights four potential threats to remaining employees: trust, job satisfaction, motivation, and stress. The paper provides several suggestions for mitigating these impacts, including communication to retain trust, acting ethically to ensure satisfied employees, seeking an understanding of employee perspectives to build employee motivation, and providing good planning along with training and development to reduce employee stress.

Outsourcing, Occupational Restructuring, and Employee Well-being

2012

Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan toimintojen ulkoistamisen ja tehtävärakenteiden muutosten vaikutuksia työntekijöiden itsensä kokemiin työoloihin. Työoloja mitattiin useilla eri mittareilla. Tulokset perustuvat poikkeuksellisen rikkaaseen yhdistettyyn aineistoon. Tarkastelu osoittaa, että ulkoistaminen ulkomaille lisää työtehtävien häviämistä yrityksissä. Tämän ulkomaille ulkoistamisen suoran vaikutuksen lisäksi eriteltiin myös ulkoistamisen epäsuoria vaikutuksia niihin työntekijöihin, jotka onnistuvat säilyttämään työpaikkansa sellaisessa yrityksessä, joka on ulkoistanut toimintojaan. Ulkoistamisen epäsuorat vaikutukset ovat tulosten valossa suoria vaikutuksia huomattavasti heikompia. Tämän lisäksi epäsuorat vaikutukset työntekijöiden kokemaan hyvinvointiin eivät ole yksioikoisen negatiivisia. Ulkoistaminen toisiin teollisuusmaihin esim. parantaa selvästi suomalaisten työntekijöiden mahdollisuuksia edetä urallaan.

Outsourcing in Today’s Economic Environment

New Trends in Sustainable Business and Consumption

An economic phenomenon that is defined by the movement of industrial activity from developed to emerging nations has occurred during the past two decades. This technique may be seen as the huge firms' solution to the issue of production costs that were steadily growing along with rising living standards and compensation. This paper seeks to study outsourcing from the standpoint of its evolution as well as the benefits and drawbacks that come with it. On the other hand, this research essay aims to define the concept's foundations and explore its applicability to the public sector. Overall, research on outsourcing has shown that outsourcing can provide significant benefits in terms of cost savings, flexibility, and quality, but it also presents challenges in terms of managing relationships, maintaining control, and managing the human resources aspects of outsourcing. Companies need to carefully consider the potential benefits and risks of outsourcing before deciding whether to...

Business outcomes of outsourcing: lessons from management research

Outsourcing has been broadly recognized as an important strategic choice made by companies and other organizations to achieve a wide variety of goals. Many studies have focused on the economic and fi nancial impacts and on the relationship between outsourcers and outsourcees. This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of actual outsourcing outcomes found in management research, including impacts on human capital. Analysis of the evidence on outsourcing in the OECD STAN database (OECD 2011: 1970-2009) shows that both the number of transactions (deals) and their scope (activities involved) have increased constantly during the last 20 years. Over time, outsourcing popularity peaks have coincided with certain trends, such as business process reengineering, strategic focusing on core business, outsourcing/offshoring strategies, shared services and corporate downsizing (e.g. Brunetta and Peruffo 2014). Furthermore, as recent research shows, companies are expeditiously outsourcing non-core business processes and functions in order to maximize their profi ts. Business profi ts can be increased through reducing costs and/or via acquiring external sources of strategic differentiation (e.g. higher-quality raw materials or distinctive expertise/competences able to improve the overall quality of products and services, enabling companies to sell them at higher prices) (De Fontenay and Gans 2008; Gospel and Sako 2010; Angeli and Grimaldi 2010; Doellgast and Gospel 2012; Giustiniano et al. 2014).

The Outsourcing Debate: Theories and Findings

Journal of Management & Organization, 2005

The linkage scheme encourages researchers to form industry partnerships for the research process, in order to develop research outcomes that are of industry relevance. It is stressed in the ARC guidelines that the research should not be a consultancy. One of the big-five industry companies, Transfield, was our industry partner. We have already acknowledged the support of the company and its executives. We should stress, however, that our research was conducted independently of the company and was in no way anything other than a dedicated research project. The authors would like to thank Transfield and Boston Consulting Group for their contribution to this study. They also would like to acknowledge the assistance of Rachael Weiss in helping to design the study and Rosie Stilin, for research assistance, as well as the participants in both the quantitative and qualitative study, and the helpful comments of Fons Naus, Robert Roe, John Sillince, Carl Rhodes, Tyrone Pitsis, Martin Kornberger and Robert van Krieken on earlier drafts.

The Impact of Outsourcing on Labour Managemnt Relations

The present study focused on the impact of outsourcing on labour-management relations in the banking sector, with reference to Diamond bank plc, Onitsha. The study was designed to explore the human relations aspect of outsourcing, as a result of which the Social Exchange theory was applied as the theoretical framework for this study. The research seeks to ascertain if outsourcing has any impact on labour and management relations, investigate whether outsourcing leads to conflict in the bank as well as discuss the effect of outsourcing on workers performance and organizational growth. This research made use of Chi-square Goodness-of-Fit statistical tool to test the hypotheses generated from this research in order to access the impact of outsourcing on labour-management relations, work performance and industrial conflict in the bank. A sample size of ninety-six was chosen for this study through the use Taro Yarmane’s formula, out of which, seventy-seven participants including managers, direct employees and outsourced staff responded to the questionnaires distributed for the purpose of this study. The research findings points to three main conclusions. First, outsourcing does not have any impact on labour-management relations. Secondly, outsourcing does not have a significant effect of workers’ performance and organizational growth. Lastly, outsourcing does not contribute to industrial conflict within diamond bank.

The Dynamics and Complexity of Outsourcing

International journal of multidisciplinary and current research, 2016

Outsourcing has become very sophisticated and technology intensive. This is attributed to the demand for enhanced productivity and the maintenance of standards. It cannot be emphasised enough that skilled personnel is a key requirement when conducting outsourcing. This article investigates The Dynamics and Complexity of Outsourcing through the use of secondary method of data collection. The key findings suggest that the increase in outsourcing of core and non-core activities creates business opportunities. The successful management of outsourcing relationships, the adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) and the skillful compilation of outsourcing contracts are considered to be of paramount importance in attaining successful outsourcing outcomes. Outsourcing creates jobs with minimal remuneration for vendor companies to attain higher profits and job loss of permanent personnel which is a complex issue to address. Union leaders globally have viewed outsourcing as unfavourable for their members. The challenge however lies in identifying suitable formulae to compensate retrenched workers and the compilation of favourable remuneration packages for outsourcing personnel. In conclusion, supply chains open markets globally allowing free trade to take place which consequently results in increased economic growth and development.

The Organizational Change Implications of Outsourcing

Journal of General Management, 2002

Outsourcing is not a quick fix. It needs a management culture that encourages and values collaboration. One the of key issues to emerge for many organizations has been the increasing importance of outsourcing. The potential for outsourcing has moved on from those activities that are normally regarded as of peripheral concern to the organization, such as cleaning, catering and security, to include critical areas of activity such as design, manufacture, marketing, distribution and information systems with almost the entire value chain open to the use of outside supply [1]. Outsourcing is now recognised as an area of strategic importance for o~ganizations and one that can contribute to the achievement of competitive advantage. The outsourcing decision can often be a major determinant of profitability making a significant contribution to the financial health ofthe company [2]. Quinn and Hilmer [3] argue that outsourcing has a number of advantages including access to economies of scale, flexibility, the ability to focus on the remaining specialised aCtivities, reduction in overhead costs and a flatter and more responsive organization. During the late 1980s •and 1990s, some vertically integrated companies have found vertical integration to be competitively inflexible in a rapidly changing business environment. For this reason, companies have become interested in 'quasi-integration' strategies such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, technology licenses, asset ownership, franchising and long term preferred supplier relationships (Schmitz et al., 1995). Large Western manufacturers have been attempting to bridge the gap between the traditional make versus buy decision by combining the strengths of vertical integration and outsourcing in order to achieve vertical integration without financial ownership.

Outsourcing — The benefits and the risks

Human Resource Management Review, 2006

Outsourcing is promoted as one of the most powerful trends in human resources management. The rationale for outsourcing HR functions includes financial savings, an increased ability to focus on strategic issues, access to technology and specialized expertise, and an ability to demand measurable and improved service levels. However, there are some indications that these benefits are not being realized. Furthermore, there may be a serious impact on employee morale and a risk of transferring expertise and insider knowledge to vendors. Managing the outsourcing arrangement is critical.

Overcoming Inertia: Drivers of the Outsourcing Process

Long Range Planning, 2011

Almost all managers have directly or indirectly been involved in the practice of outsourcing in recent years. But as they know, outsourcing is not straightforward. Outsourcing inertia, when companies are slow to adapt to changing circumstances that accommodate higher outsourcing levels, may undermine a firm's performance. This article investigates the presence of outsourcing inertia and the factors that help managers overcome it. Using statistical evidence, we show that positive performance effects related to outsourcing can accumulate when circumstances change. This is then followed by rapid increases in outsourcing levels (i.e. outsourcing processes). We investigate what gives rise to these outsourcing processes through follow-up interviews with sourcing executives, which suggest five drivers behind outsourcing processes: managerial initiative (using outside experience); hierarchy (foreign headquarters); imitation (of competitors and of similar firms); outsider advice (from external institutions); knowledge sources (using external information). These five drivers all offer scope for managerial action. We tie them to academic literatures and suggest ways of investigating their presence and impact on the outsourcing process. Overall, we conclude that while economizing factors play a key role in explaining how much firms outsource, it is socializing factors that tend to drive outsourcing processes.