Anxiety and psychological security in offshoring relationships: the role and development of trust as emotional commitment

In this paper we focus on the neglected role of anxiety and psychological security in organizational life; specifically, in the context of the organization and development of offshoring relationships that extend across time and geography. In contrast with much of the literature on offshoring (and inter-organizational relationships more generally), which tends to take a very conventional rational decision making perspective on the phenomenon in question, we emphasize the less tangible, emotional dimensions. In particular, we are concerned with understanding the processes by which clients, who have little or no previous experience of offshoring, may develop and sustain adequate levels of psychological security to enable them to bracket risk and productively engage in such unfamiliar and alien work arrangements. To this end, we draw on Anthony Giddens’ distinctive, non-cognitivist conception of trust, supplemented by other important contributions in the area, to explore the processes by which a sense of psychological security and stability is achieved in the face of the quotidian anxieties provoked by engagement in these contemporary modes of global organizing. Our synthesized theoretical framework is developed and illustrated in the context of an ongoing, in-depth, longitudinal study of the evolution of an Ireland-India IS offshoring relationship. By tracing the dynamics of this relationship over an 18 month period, we examine the practices (or ‘relationship work’) through which trust is produced, and suggest that different mechanisms can be discerned at different (albeit overlapping) stages of the relationship. In the earlier phase, the emphasis is on the role played by care and attentiveness in producing a sense of trust in the qualities of the supplier. As the relationship develops, however, the emphasis shifts to the production of a stable collaborative order. Here, we focus on the micro-political dynamics of such processes and draw attention to three important tactical interventions (brokerage, signaling, and the ‘third man’). We conclude by arguing that