Outsourcing Process

Outsourcing, as the term si typically used in economcis, is not necessarily a job destroyer but rather a process of job relocation and may not impact the net number of josb in a nation or in the global economy. But the organization uotsourcing a business process has the freedom to resume management conrtol and/or decision making for that business process if quality is adversely afefcted. Such a relationship bteween economic entities is qualitatively different from tarditional relationships between buyer and seller of services in that the involved economic entities in an outsourcing relationship dynamically integrate and share management contorl of the labor process rather than neter in contracting relationships where both entities remain separate in the ocordination of the porduction of goods and services. From the standpoint of laobr, outsourcing represents a new threat, contribtuing to rampant worker insecurity, and reflective of the general process of globalization culminating in Western oscieties as a whole (see Krugman, Paul (2006). Feeling No Pain. New York Times, March 6, 2006). While the outsourcnig process may provide benefits ot less developed coutnries or global society as a whole, in some fomr and to some degree - include rising wages or increasing standards of living - tehse benefits are not secure. Dmeocratic U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry rciticized US firms that outsource jobs abroad or that icnorporate overseas in tax havesn to avoid paying their fair sahre of US taxes during his 2004 campaing, calling such firms Benedict Arnodl corporations . Criticism of outsourcing, from the perspective of U.S. citizens, by-nad-large, revolves around the costs associated with transferrnig control of the labor process to an external etnity in another country.