Foundations in Management - Emerging Organizational Forms: Work and Organization in the 21st Century

Because many businesses in the US have more often began outsourcing different business products instead of doing them in-house, it is important to understand why outsourcing may be the best option. Although many tie outsourcing to foreign markets, outsourcing can include both foreign and domestic markets. By entering into a contractual agreement, outsourcing allows organizations to pay for services they need. This gives the option for a business to get professionals to perform services for them that the business may not have the staff for. Outsourcing provides a cost saving-strategy that is usually more affordable. Ultimately,

Outsourcing is a practice used by different companies to reduce costs by transferring portions of work to outside suppliers rather than completing it internally. (Investopedia) Outsourcing jobs has become increasingly popular in the economic realm of the world since the mid-20th century and has since then become a more controversial topic. The United States economy has been under the microscope for the last 4 years due to the economic recession. In today’s global business competitive environment, companies must find innovative ways that adapt to new strategies to sustain revenue generation, while also remaining competitive. This paper gives the effects that I have found to be most pertinent to the ongoing debate over outsourcing jobs, and how it can affect the U.S economy.

In light of recent growth of domestic and foreign countries outsourcing and off shoring over seas, companies been taken advantage of the cheap labor cost for outsourcing and off shoring manufacturing. Competitive business investing in domestic and foreign manufacturing have affects every part of the business industries from design, software development, finances and logistic management, i.e., customer and sales. Nevertheless, outsourcing been praised by businesses for outcomes of cost-effectiveness, efficient, productive and strategic, but damned as malicious, because of companies’ greediness, detrimental, and brutal in the public eyes.

The vendors are investing in their employees by various training programs on different technologies. This gives a chance for the vendor to provide the outsourcing services to a company with the help of the well trained employees who are ready to work on the projects. Before outsourcing some of its products and services to a third part vendor, the company has to analyze all the factors that might result from the outsourcing decision, the advantages and disadvantages of the company both in short term and long term due to outsourcing. According to Aubuchon, outsourcing some of its products can be a good thing for a company and the judgment to outsource the services must not only based on the cost factor, but the company has to take all other significant factors into consideration (Aubuchon, 2014).

Outsourcing Work. Outsourcing means just what it says - going "out" to find a "source" to undertake the work. The most obvious advantage of outsourcing appeared to be the cost savings that would come with not having to purchase additional equipment or work space and not having to add to the employee headcount. However, it was noted that some organisations are now doing more themselves in order to develop or preserve their expertise and self-sufficiency.

Martha S. Feldman a theorist discusses organisational change in her paper. She sees emergent approach as the right way to perceive organisational change. Furthermore according to her the organisational internal dynamics i.e. routines and norms of its employees, managers and other workers is the area that should be targeted for change (Feldman, 2000). She elaborated that every organisation has capacity to change itself for betterment but what is crucial is it should be taken naturally and slowly. She emphasized that organisation should be focusing on micro level internal

Therefore, outsourcing is challenging for companies because they are several tasks involve in this process. For example: selecting the correct provider of outsourcing, what is the company’s goal, identifying the core and non-core business activities, defining the process that should be keep it in-house or the activities that are better to outsource, to a country that works based on the comparative advantage. Consequently the main propose of outsourcing is to lower costs, and this can cause a direct impact in labor rights.

This issue facing my organization is outsourcing. Outsourcing, the corporate buzzword of the nineteen-nineties through today, is a popular business approach utilized by companies focused on lowering their cost structure, gain entrance to new markets, and expand and build capabilities. Defined as, the strategic use of outside resources to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff and resources [Handfleld, R, 2006]. Initially, outsourcing targeted non-critical and non-core activities such as facility maintenance and cleaning and security. Later the industry focus began to include the core processes of manufacturing, logistics, and back office support functions. In my experience, the term outsourcing strikes fear into the minds of employees and managers and represents dollar signs to executives and investors. Open communication during change is critical and to eliminate disconnects and misunderstandings. The objective of this paper is to describe both sides, delve into the communication middle ground, and expose the avoidable hidden costs that exist and provide possible solutions to reduce or avoid these hidden costs in value, human capital, and knowledge.

The organizations we work in or rely on to meet our needs and wants are also changing dramatically, in terms of their strategies, their structures, their systems, their boundaries, and of course their expectations of their staff and managers. (Cameron, pg. 1)

Outsourcing is defined as "the process of purchasing goods and services from outside vendors rather than producing the same goods or providing the same services within the organization." Outsourcing does not come without risks, but it also has its benefits as well. Gaining services or products from outside sources can be very beneficial, considering the alternative that the firm will have to produce them themselves. However, on main risk that is incurred when outsourcing is that when a firm does outsource, they leave the supply of that product or service in the hands of someone of whom they cannot control, contrary to controlling their own supply. Ethical issues are at hand here, as well as trust issues. As you will see in this paper, many different opinions about outsourcing are present among different financial investors and financial officers. Management teams and management leaders are the head personnel that weigh the pro 's and con 's of outsourcing, and this paper will briefly summarize the various opinions, pro 's, con 's, large benefits, and ethical issues dealing with outsourcing.

Outsourcing is the contracting out of an internal business process to a third party organization. The term "outsourcing" became popular in the United States near the turn of the 21st century.(6) Outsourcing is big business today even for small businesses. Like every business decision we are faced with the advantages as well as the disadvantages of relocating part or all of a business. Outsourcing is one of the fastest growing trends in business as large-scale organizations have latched onto outsourcing due to the almost immediate savings and quality improvement. (1)

As companies look for ways to strategically perform better in their respective industries many chose to outsource job functions. Outsourcing allows companies to grow and expand their business around the world. Many have attributed outsourcing to lowering operating costs, a method to increase expertise and gain additional technology, and as a way to improve efficiency and services. These advantages can help a company gain a competitive advantage over industry participants. When a company strategically plans to outsource ethical consideration must be acknowledged; especially when outsourcing is offshore.

One of the most important forces of outsourcing is that organizations do not have gain the needed and required sources internally. And they have a difficulty in integrating and attracting expertise, where outsources own capabilities on a global level, modern technologies and other required resources. Also, by outsourcing the cost of keeping employees and consultants for short term is reduced. Furthermore, outsourcers are able to offer better career opportunities for business IT staff if they decide to transit to the outsourcer. As the manager of BP Company viewed the main reason of BP Company outsourcing is that "it has become increasingly apparent that service companies provide us with technical skills and ideas that we could no longer develop inside our own company" (Kremis, 2006).

The economic world as we know it is always changing. We live in a volatile time economically, and the need to survive these tough times is restructuring the way the world does business. Rather than keeping up more traditional models of business, globalization is impacting the way nations and corporations connect and compete with one another. Today, most companies use outsourcing as a primary strategy to help ease the load of the stress of day to day operations. Yet, at the same time such strategies have been receiving a lot of criticism because of the hard economic position the United States is in, and the need for work that has been such a problem in the midst of rising unemployment rates. Despite the bad reputation outsourcing has gotten in these vulnerable economic times, the process can be incredibly beneficial to a company's strategy based on its ability to help lower operating costs, open up new capital, and improve overall productivity in general.

Outsourcing refers to hiring an outside, independent firm to perform a business function that internal employees might otherwise perform. Many organizations outsource jobs to specialized service companies, which frequently operate abroad. The outsourcing trend stands to continue; the latest wave of outsourcing impacts the information technology field. IT outsourcing includes data center operations, desktop and help desk support, software development, e-commerce outsourcing, software applications services, network operations and disaster recovery.2