ABSTRACT
I feature Salma and Tanya, high performing project managers at outsourcing companies who strongly identified with the technical and problem-solving in their IT work. Yet with its hyper-commodification and high job insecurity in outsourcing, they did not feel the same investment in their work. I show the ways in which the work and culture is greatly commodified with outsourcing. Before beginning a deal, significant resources are spent to identify all aspects of the work to-be-outsourced and to quantify it in contracts using numbers and service level agreements (SLAs). Ticket systems help identify work currently not being paid for. The culture also reflects a market logic focused on the quick remediation of a customer’s custom and more costly business processes to the standard and automated ones at outsourcing companies. SLAs dominate conversations, tickets make all work requests and their resolution transparent, and lean and flexible staffing – with regular job actions (or losses) – represent new systems of market control over the work. There is very little management recognition of good work, only its commodification in the culture. As a result, subjects perceived work with inO as less meaningful and not conducive to supporting a positive professional identity.
