Accepted Version_FEB18_2014.pdf (201.59 kB)
The realignment of offshoring frame disputes (OFD): an ethnographic ‘cultural’ analysis
journal contribution
posted on 2015-03-06, 14:36 authored by M.N. RavishankarIn Information Systems (IS) research on cross-cultural issues, cultural categories
are typically introduced as analytical labels that explain why and how organizational
groups in different parts of the world act and think differently. However,
broad cultural categories can also be discursively mobilized by organizational
members as strategic adaptive resources. Drawing on an ethnographic study of
offshoring frame disputes (OFD) in an Indian subsidiary unit of a large Western
information technology (IT) organization, this paper explores how members
actively invoke a series of beliefs about Western culture and implicitly position
them as the binary opposite of Eastern (or Indian) culture. The findings
demonstrate how the mobilization of such beliefs eventually plays a vital role in
the reconciliation of four different types of OFD. Drawing on this analysis, I build
a social–psychological process model that explains how frame extensions trigger
a cognitive reorganization process, leading to the accomplishment of OFD
realignment. The paper argues that discursively invoked binary cultural categories
help maintain non-confrontational definitions of situations and sustain
working relationships in IT offshoring environments. Furthermore, interpretations
linked to cultural notions seem to reflexively take the offshore–onshore
power differentials into account.
History
School
- Business and Economics
Department
- Business
Published in
European Journal of Information SystemsVolume
24Issue
3Pages
234-246Citation
RAVISHANKAR, M.N., 2015. The realignment of offshoring frame disputes (OFD): an ethnographic ‘cultural’ analysis. European Journal of Information Systems, 24(3), pp.234-246.Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan / © Operational Research Society Ltd.Version
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Acceptance date
2014-02-04Publication date
2017-12-19Copyright date
2015Notes
This article was published in the European Journal of Information Systems [Palgrave Macmillan / © Operational Research Society Ltd] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2014.5ISSN
0960-085XeISSN
1476-9344Publisher version
Language
- en