Business process outsourcing: It's ideology, actuality, and the effects on professionals and their work

• Main Author: Zalewski, Jacqueline M
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2006
• Subjects: Agreements; Alliances; Automation; Brand names; Business community; Business metrics; Careers; Contractors; Cooperation; Copyright; Cost control; Customer services; Employees; Employment; Human resources; Information Technology; Labor relations; Management; Market shares; Marketing; Middle class; Organization theory; Organizational behavior; Outsourcing; Process planning; Professionals; Sociology; Studies; Suppliers; Technology; Trends; Workers
• ISBN: 0542993473; 9780542993473

This exploratory research examines the growing practice of "in-house" business process outsourcing and challenges its primary claims. Claims suggest it is a cooperative and more efficient way of organizing work, it offers new professional development opportunities, and it can revitalize professional careers. This is a comparative case study of 10 separate business process outsourcing deals that involved the "rebadging" of information technology and human resource professionals at leading corporations and hospitals in the Midwest between 1996 and 2004. Professionals in these cases were forced to take jobs with outsourcing provider firms. Findings describe the planning that precedes an outsourcing deal, the types of tasks that are generally outsourced in these departments, the techniques outsourcing providers are applying to standardize professional work, the measures companies take to manage the relationship, the transaction costs and problems that usually result in outsourcing deals, and the effects of outsourcing on professional work in these fields and on the social relations among former colleagues. The main findings of the study show that most of outsourcing's ideologies should be questioned. This study shows that companies often have difficulties adjusting to the new organization of work, and the old problems of market relationships (e.g., incomplete contracts in markets, the moral hazard of slack, and perfunctory cooperation) usually revisit outsourcing deals---despite the new measures (e.g., flexible contracts, governance, subject matter experts) taken to offset them. Governance of contracts adds new bureaucratic layers that also challenge claims of outsourcing's greater efficiencies. Several cases in my sample do suggest that some transaction problems can be offset through transparency techniques, open lines of communication, using governance strategically, and with time. While information technologists can find opportunities to expand their roles and learn new skills and techniques in their field, the benefits of jobs at outsourcing providers are usually offset by many drawbacks. Drawbacks include reduced levels of professional discretion and control over work, significant increases in the amount of work and time spent at the office, damage to relations with former colleagues because of new proprietary concerns and roles in contracts, and formidable geographic barriers to networking.