In this paper, in order to study the impact of offshoring on sectoral and economywide rates of unemployment, we construct a two-sector, general-equilibrium model in which labor is mobile across the two sectors, and unemployment is caused by search frictions. We find that, contrary to general perception, wage increases and sectoral unemployment decreases due to offshoring. This result can be und...

This article is about the role played by trust in structuring and shaping offshoring projects and how cultural differences interfere in the related inter-firms relationships. This study, conducted with three IT service provider companies established in Tunisia, has provided a dataset that has confirmed the structuring role of trust in terms of transferability effect between the client and the o...

SUMMARY NDUSTRY CANADA ORIGINALLY PROPOSED the question in the title as the basis for a research paper. Because of the lack of data suitable for framing and testing a quantitative model, the resulting paper instead provides some tentative estimates of the relative sizes of immigration and offshoring in the Canadian context, specifically in the context of skilled services. Very approximate estim...

Received: 19 January 2007 Revised: 15 January 2008 Accepted: 28 January 2008 Online publication date: 30 October 2008 Abstract A recent Offshoring Research Network (ORN) global survey of offshoring shows that since 2004 management concerns about operational issues on achieving the benefits of offshoring have increased significantly. In this paper we examine inter-task interdependence, a key ope...

When asked to provide a framework piece on offshoring, I decided it would be much easier to have the work done by an Indian consulting firm. A quick bit of research turned up a perfect corporate partner. Not surprisingly, the company has a London-based front end—it is a fact of the industry that many customers prefer to work through a Western intermediary. The company quoted the job at $63,000,...

Using plant data that distinguish between occupations, tasks, and workforce skills, this paper investigates the relationship between offshoring and the onshore workforce composition at German multinational enterprises (MNEs) in manufacturing and services. There is no statistically significant association between offshoring and the share of whiteand blue-collar jobs in the onshore wage bill. The...

PURPOSE - The issue of offshore outsourcing of healthcare services is a critical but little-examined problem in healthcare research. The purpose of this study is to contribute to filling this void. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH A library-based study was carried out of the development of the Indian medical transcription offshoring industry. Findings- Cost-saving potential and the degree of outso...

The paper investigates the relationship between offshoring, wages, and the ease with which individuals’ tasks can be offshored. Our analysis relates to recent theoretical contributions arguing that there is only a loose relationship between the suitability of a task for offshoring and the associated skill level. Accordingly, wage effects of offshoring can be very heterogeneous within skill grou...

Thomas Friedman, in his 2007 book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21 st Century (New York: Picador), discusses offshoring as a “flattener.” As a business strategy enacted to attain high levels of competency while reducing cost, offshoring is not a new idea, especially in information technology. The strategy of offshoring data warehousing and business intelligence (BI), however, is re...

The offshoring of IT development is a significant global economic phenomenon. It influences the lives and fortunes of individuals, organizations, and nations/regions. However, because offshoring so broadly affects different stakeholders, a multi-level theory is required so that influences that may positively affect one set of stakeholders while negatively affecting another are not misinterprete...