Offshoring and Working Conditions in Remote Work

by Messenger, Jon C.; Ghosheh, Naj

• ISBN13: 9780230248861
• ISBN10: 0230248861
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-06-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) combined with organizations seeking to reduce costs have led to a dramatic growth in service sector offshoring and outsourcing, most notably to developing countries such as India. Despite a burgeoning literature on this phenomenon, little attention has been given to the working and employment conditions that exist in the growing number of workplaces providing these IT-enabled services.

Author Biography

JON C. MESSENGER is a Senior Research Officer with the Conditions of Work and Employment Programme of the International Labour Organization (ILO), with the lead responsibility for its program on working time and work organization. He specializes in policy research on working time and work organization at the enterprise level, with a particular interest in issues relating to working time flexibility and new forms of work organization. He is the general editor of a forthcoming ILO publication on working time in the industrialized world, entitled Working time and Worker's Preferences in Industrialized countries: Finding the balance. Prior to joining the ILO, he worked at the US Department of Labor in Washington, DC, where he served as Team Leader for Research in Employment and Training Administration.

NAJATI GHOSHEH has a doctorarate from the University of Cambridge, UK and an MA in law from the University of Oxford, UK. He is a research officer with the Conditions of Work and Employment Programme of the ILO. He is currently working on the conditions of work and employment for older workers in the labor market. Since joining the department he has also worked on the reconciliation of work and family life, as well as addressing other working condition topics addressed in the Programme. He has published articles on legal and industrial relations issues, and has a particular interest on issues that impact on the employment relationship.

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Charts and Boxes	p. viii
Preface	p. xii
Acknowledgements	p. xvi
Notes on Contributors	p. xviii
List of Abbreviations	p. xx
Introduction	p. 1
Rationales for outsourcing and offshoring business services	p. 3
Potential impacts of offshoring and outsourcing on working and employment conditions	p. 8
Origins of outsourcing and offshoring in the services sector	p. 9
Business start-up and government follow-up: The emergence of ITES-BPO in developing countries	p. 12
The focus of the book	p. 14
Remote Work from the Perspective of Developed Economies: A Multicountry Synthesis	p. 17
Introduction	p. 17
Global Service Delivery	p. 18
Multinational Service Companies	p. 19
Global 'Captive' Companies	p. 20
Indian Companies	p. 21
Unevenness of Global Sourcing	p. 22
Linguistic Capability and Cultural Compatibility	p. 23
Underlying Economic, Geographical and Locational Dynamics	p. 25
'Taylorism' Through Relocation and 'Rising Up the Value Chain'	p. 26
Political Economy, Global Regulation and Governance	p. 27
Labour	p. 29
Offshoring, Nearshoring and Onshoring	p. 30
United States	p. 32
United Kingdom	p. 41
Canada	p. 51
Conclusions	p. 56
Employee Dilemmas in the Indian ITES-BPO Sector	p. 60
Introduction	p. 60
Research Methodology	p. 61
The Indian ITES-BPO Sector	p. 63
Profiling the Indian ITES-BPO Workforce	p. 71
Recruitment and Training	p. 75
Work Systems	p. 79
Work-Life Balance	p. 89
Human Resources Practices	p. 91
Attrition	p. 94
Collectivization and Union Formation	p. 95
Conclusions	p. 99
Recommendations	p. 99
Offshored Work in Philippine BPOs	p. 101
Introduction and Objectives	p. 101
Business Environment in the BPO Industry	p. 102
Research Methodology	p. 103
Overview of the Labour Market	p. 104
The BPO Employers	p. 105
Employee Characteristics	p. 106
Education	p. 107
Work Experience	p. 108
Recruitment and Training	p. 109
Legal and Regulatory Framework	p. 109
Working and Employment Conditions	p. 112
Conclusions	p. 130
Remote Work in Brazil	p. 135
Introduction and Objectives	p. 135
Research Methodology	p. 135
The Business Environment for Outsourcing and Offshoring ITES Functions	p. 137
The Labour Market in Brazil	p. 140
The Labour Law in Brazil	p. 143
The BPO Industry in Brazil	p. 145
Working and Employment Conditions in the BPO Industry in Brazil	p. 147
The Financial Services Industry in Brazil	p. 148
The Telecommunications Industry	p. 149
Call Centres and Customer Service Centres in Brazil	p. 150
Conclusions	p. 159
Remote Work and Global Sourcing in Argentina	p. 162
Methodology Used for This Study	p. 164
Recent Trends in Trade in Services in Argentina	p. 165
Working Conditions and Employment in Light of the New Trends in Services Exports in Argentina	p. 174
Conclusions	p. 191
Annex: Interviews Conducted for This Chapter	p. 193
A Comparative Analysis of the Business Environment, Job Quality and Work Organization in Offshored Business Services	p. 196
Introduction	p. 196
Global, National and Organizational Environments of BPO Companies	p. 197
An Analysis of Job Quality in RWAs	p. 209
Conclusion: Summary of Job Quality in the BPO Industry	p. 233
Conclusion: Implications for Government Policies and Company Practices	p. 236
Introduction	p. 236
Key Factors Affecting Employment Conditions and Possible Responses	p. 238
Concluding Remarks	p. 244
Bibliography	p. 246
Index	p. 260
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.