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Lived experiences of offshoring: An examination of UK and Indian financial service employees' accounts of themselves and one another

Business School, Loughborough University, l.cohen{at}lboro.ac.uk

Amal El-Sawad

Business School, Loughborough University, a.el-sawad{at}lboro.ac.uk

This article is about employees' lived experiences of offshoring. Focusing on the accounts of individuals in a financial services company operating in the UK and in Mumbai, India, it examines the ways in which respondents constructed and positioned themselves in relation to one another in the stories they told. We argue that in their accounts our respondents mobilized discourses of culture and cultural difference to describe and justify this positioning, with particular reference to `the language barrier', work ethics and notions of competence. We draw three broad conclusions. The first is empirical and concerns the benefits of in-depth case study research for developing understandings of this emerging sector. The second conclusion relates to respondents' use of cultural ascriptions to justify certain existing patterns of behaviour, and to foreclose discussion of alternatives. The third conclusion highlights the deep sense of ambivalence that permeates our dataset, proposing that within this ambivalence lie possibilities for resistance and change.

Key Words: cultural difference • customer service work • India • lived experience of offshoring and outsourcing • postcolonial theory

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Human Relations, Vol. 60, No. 8, 1235-1262 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726707081662


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Cohen, L. Articles by El-Sawad, A. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?