Offshoring and working conditions in remote work

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. This is a co-publication with Palgrave MacMillan Publishing.

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. However, 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 business process outsourcing andIT-enabled services in developing countries.
The authors address this phenomenon by examining and providing a historical context for the development of the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, based on case study analysis of working conditions in four countries where this industry is large or growing - Argentina, Brazil, India and the Philippines. Policy advice is offered to policy-makers and companies on how the growth of "good quality" jobs can be promoted as these industries grow and mature around the world.