Some proclaimed that offshoring can bring benefits to the organization and its stakeholders, instilling the idea that they will reap the benefits of higher profits through the practice of offshoring. The profits earned from offshoring certain jobs and aspects of the company could be used for further investments in the firm, claiming that development of employment opportunities for workers is imminent (Bryan, 2011). Although this does paint an impressive picture of the possibility of what offshoring can provide, this however does not reflect the reality being experienced in the United States, in terms of the employment situation for the working/middle class. This is a downside to offshoring as it is affecting the middle class by reducing its numbers, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States (Bryan, 2011). Global competitiveness has lead corporations to view offshoring as a necessity rather than as a choice. The advantage often viewed with regards to offshoring is the considerably lower wages available through offshored workers. According to Bryan ...
Globalisation is a growing phenomenon that is the result of various developments in the global environment, each of which merits an individual analysis of its social impacts. For the purpose of this analysis, the focus will be placed upon arguably its most controversial aspect, offshore outsourcing. Offshore outsourcing, or offshoring, is becoming an increasingly common business practice as a result of a combination of the recent technological advancements in the areas of transportation and communication, and the increased competitiveness of the business world. From the perspective of firms, tapping into cheap labor from less developed countries is a very logical business decision to reduce costs and maximize profits. This has not only motivated businesses to engage in offshoring, it has sometimes been critical to their survival in fiercely competitive environments. Before making judgments regarding the righteousness of offshoring from different perspectives, its impact on stakeholders must first be evaluated.
Offshoring American jobs have positive and negative consequences to the American community. Some of those consequences of offshoring American jobs include Amer...
Mankiw and Swagel (2006) argue outsourcing is not as large a phenomenon as the media describes. Their research indicates outsourcing accounts for very little of job loss in the United States, nor has it made a distinct contribution to the slow rebound of the labor market. They go on to propose that increased overseas employment has actually contributed to higher employment in parent United States companies. They reported that while 30,000 jobs were lost per month in 2004, two million job changes per month were happening as well. They reference the Bureau of Labor Statistics when they report that in 2015 there are expected to be 3.4 million jobs outsourced, but 160 million jobs gained here in the United States. They also claim that there is a rise in net US income by 12-14 cents per dollar of outso...
Off-shoring is the establishment of business operations outside national boundaries. The process of moving business outside these boundaries is to garner an advantage either through tax breaks, lower wages, lower transportation cost and/or relaxed regulations ("Offshore definition," 2014). Many firms either branch out as a horizontal multinational or vertical multinational. Horizontal multinational’s produce the same good or services as abroad. This foreign direct investment (FDI) is done to strategically place production closer to the target market. Doing this provides advantages surrounding transportation cost while enhancing learning associated with local needs. A vertical multinational is one that fragments a portion of its good to take advantage of lower cost (i.e. cheap labor). Markusen and Maskus found horizontal multinational replaces trade whereas, a vertical multinational positively correlates with trade (Markusen & Maskus, 2001).
“Present two arguments for and two arguments against a U.S. company offshoring the management of its customer relationships to technical and managerial personnel in a less-developed country.”
For advocates of global business, the hope is that outsourcing will help lift the United State’s economic growth and development by lowering the input cost of services (i.e. labor and materials) and by opening new markets abroad. Mainstream economists believe that outsourcing will have ...
Since the concept of outsourcing was introduced it has been a subject of debate between politicians and citizens of the United States. Remarkably, it was the United States who supported outsourcing and now it is the United States that feels its economic progress is being threatened by outsourcing. One may argue that the financial situations that existed two decades earlier are not the same as they are today, thus the change of time, business priorities of economies have also changed.
As the problem of job outsourcing becomes more of an issue in politics, elected officials like the President and Congress will no longer be able to ignore the dilemma. The war in Iraq has been at the forefront of the presidential race but the importance of outsourcing American jobs seems to have been slightly overshadowed. If the issue of outsourcing is not watched carefully and a definitive plan hammered out, a trickling down of negative effects may occur within the U.S. economy. However, there is a polarized opinion on the effects of this “phenomenon”.
Outsourcing is obtaining goods or services from a foreign supplier in place of going in the country for these things. There are many debated effects of outsourcing on the economy, and there are several pros and cons to this practice. Even though there are many pros, the overall economy of America would be better off with minimal outsourcing.
Outsourcing damages the American economy by sending jobs overseas. "Outsourcing" can be defined as 'the contracting of a business process to a third-party'. In the USA, outsourcing is thought of as a bad, 'dirty' word, spoken about in hushed tones and secrecy amongst upper-classmen and business moguls. As stated by W. Rivkin, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, "The off-shoring phenomenon has implications for policymakers, business leaders, and members of the workforce" (Hanna, J."How Many U.S. Jobs Are Offshorable?"). Politicians give people their false assurances and empty promises to stop it, and businesses feel the need to down-play their involvement in it. Phrases like 'Only Buy American' and 'Jap is Crap' are and have been popular calls-to-arms in the past years, and many Americans nowadays are lamenting the outsourcing of jobs to low-wage parts of the world, in particular Asia; namely India and China. In a time when unemployment in the USA is approaching 10% (combined with under-employment, the figure is actually more likely to be edging towards a staggering 20%), according to research carried out by the University of New Mexico (2013), the mere thought or suggestion of sending any jobs overseas is highly intolerable to many Americans.
Ilan Oshri, Julia Kotlarsky and Leslie Willcocks (2009): The Handbook of Global Outsourcing and Offshoring, Palgrave McMillan.
Outsourcing has been around for many years. In this paper I will discuss some of the history of outsourcing, the goods things about outsourcing, and the bad things about outsourcing.
Throughout history hundreds of jobs have been outsourced to other countries for the benefit of cheap labor. American outsourcing has been blamed for the constant lack of American jobs causing a controversy between the labor force and businesses that benefit from outsourcing. In the introduction of, Does Outsourcing Harm America?, outsourcing is defined as a “business practice in which a company hires service providers, usually located outside of the country, to do work that the company believes can be performed more efficiently and less expensively by these outside contractors” (7). Although many people believe that outsourcing is a recent practice in business, this is not true. Outsourcing has been around since the colonial times, the production of covered-wagon covers were outsourced to Scotland while the raw materials for the product were imported from India. During the 1970s computer companies began outsourcing their payroll applications to outside providers. Outsourcing became a well-recognized practice during the 1980s due to the high demand of IT workers. Although there was a high demand for IT workers, large corporations viewed the IT workers as an expensive labor force. Therefore many corporations led their demands elsewhere for the sole purpose of lowering their expenses. Outsourcing is not just used for IT solutions; major companies are embracing the benefits of outsourcing, companies such as Apple, Wal-Mart, Boeing, Sears, Disney, etc. US corporations have expanded their needs for outsourcing from just IT departments. Auto parts, cell phone parts, airplane parts, tax return preparations, and clothing manufacturing have all been deemed as jobs that can be produced at a lower cost rate outside of the US.
What does it mean to offshore outsource? Let’s first start by explaining what outsourcing means. The basic meaning of outsourcing is to obtain goods or services from an outside place. This gives businesses and companies the ability to save money. When the businesses and companies save money that ultimately means the consumers will also save money. The word offshore means some distance from the shore. According to Blinder “Offshoring, by contrast, means moving jobs out of the country, whether or not they leave the company” (20). To better understand the meaning of offshore outsourcing, we can say that it is the process where the companies provide jobs to foreign countries. Big
Offshoring has become a big factor in the global economy. Many companies have opened customer service centers in different countries due to the savings. Clothing companies moved their manufacturing plants to other countries due to the cost of labor. Major stores in the US, for example, Wal-Mart, brings in most of their products from other countries to save money and pass that savings onto the consumer. Capitalism in the US has recently helped the global economy, the benefits of the Americans in the world’s marketplace is seen in the return of money to the rest of the world.