IT offshoring in the professional media (1999-2003): a social representations analysis

ABSTRACT

The offshore outsourcing of information technology services has been called an 'irreversible megatrend.' Management decisions regarding IT offshoring have major impacts on companies, their IT departments and IT professionals. The dislocation of IT jobs to countries such as India and China has also become a concern as offshore outsourcing continues to ramp up. Management decision-making concerning IT offshoring takes place within a complex and dynamic landscape of issues and options. Organizational actions related to IT offshoring are influenced by the cognitions, or mental models, of the managers making these decisions. The purpose of the research-in-progress study described in this paper is to examine one of the factors expected to influence how senior IT managers (CIOs, CTO's, VPs of IT, etc.) make sense of and assign meaning to IT offshore outsourcing: the IT professional media. Social representations theory will be used to identify and compare 'common sense knowledge' and discourse represented in five periodicals from the IT professional press with high readerships of senior IT managers. The paper presents an overview of social representations theory. Social representations are defined as the shared images and concepts through which we organize our world. The processes of objectification and anchoring in the formation of social representations are described, as well as the structural view of social representations including central core and peripheral elements. The research method for the study is content analysis and correspondence analysis to identify the social representations of IT offshore outsourcing in the professional media for each year from 1999-2003.

REFERENCES

• 1: Abric, J.-C. Jeux, Conflicts et Representations Sociales, these d'etat, Universite de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 1976.
• 2: Abric, J.-C. A Structural Approach to Social Representations. In Representations of the Social: Bridging Theoretical Traditions, K. Deaux and G. Philogene, eds., Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2001, 42--47.
• 3: Clemence, A. Social Positioning and Social Representations. In Representations of the Social: Bridging Theoretical Traditions, K. Deaux and G. Philogene, eds., Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2001, 83--95.
• 4: Doise, W., Clemence, A., and Forenzi-Cioldi, F. The Quantitative Analysis of Social Representations, Harvester/Wheatsheaf, Hertfordshire, UK, 1993.
• 5: Farr, R.M., and Moscovici, S. (eds.) Social Representations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1984.
• 6: Flament, C. Structure, Dynamique et Transformation des Representations Sociales. In J.-C. Abric, ed., Pratiques Sociales e Representations, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1994, 37--57.
• 7: King, J. IT's Global Itinerary: Offshore Outsourcing Is Inevitable. Computerworld, 37, 37 (2003), 26.
• 8: Moliner, P. La Representation Sociale comme Grille de Lecture, Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence, 1992.
• 9: Moscovici, S. On Social Representations. In Social Cognition: Perspective on Everyday Understanding, J. Forgas, ed., Academic Press, London, 1981, 181--209.
• 10: Moscovici, S. The Phenomenon of Social Representation, in Social Representations, R. Farr and S. Moscovici, eds., Cambridge University Press, 1984, 12--37.
• 11: Nicolini, D. Comparing Methods for Mapping Organizational Cognition. Organization Studies, 20, 5 (1999), 833--860.
• 12: Parker, I. 'Social Representations': Social Psychology's (Mis)use of Sociology. Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior, 17, 4 (1987), 447--469.
• 13: Wagner, W. Queries About Social Representations and Construction, Journal of the Theory of Social Behavior, 26, 2 (1996), 95--20.
• 14: Wagner, W., Valencia, J., Elejabarieta, F. Relevance, Discourse and the 'Hot' Stable Core of Social Representations -- A Structural Analysis of Word Associations. British Journal of Social Psychology, 35 (1996), 331--351.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.0 General

General Terms:
Management

Keywords:
IT offshoring, IT outsourcing, managerial cognition, professional media, social representations theory