Online freelancing and impact sourcing: Examining the inclusive development potential of online service work in the Philippines

Online freelancing and impact sourcing have in recent years emerged as new models for offshore service delivery. Both have the potential of spreading the gains of online service work. Based on empirical research in the Philippines, this article examines how both models integrate outlying areas and more marginalized workers in international networks of online service delivery. The different models of information and communication technologies (ICT)-enabled service delivery were observed to rely on the same pool of labor, thereby limiting the broader distribution of its gains. The article concludes that ICT4D research can benefit from an inclusive development lens when examining the beneficiaries and users of new (information) technologies and their longer-term prospects for income generation

Innovations in outsourcing: the emergence of impact sourcing

Newly emerging information technology and business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) models are not just about business . Some of these models are also guided by a strong underlying social mission to do good and create social value . Collectively they are now being referred to as impact sourcing (ImS) models. In brief, ImS is a social innovation in outsourcing that aims to bring digitally-enabled outsourcing jobs to marginalized individuals. The ImS model of outsourcing consciously provides employment opportunities to communities and groups whose life chances are deemed poor. In this thesis we study ImS companies, i.e., IT-BPO vendor firms, which aim to create a significant impact (hence the term impact sourcing ) on the lives of hitherto disadvantaged and deprived communities by giving them gainful employment and thereby improving their material conditions. Using qualitative methods, the thesis takes multiple approaches to study the ImS model. The thesis is comprised of three empirical chapters, each exploring a different aspect of the ImS model. Chapter 2, using a multiple case-study approach, draws on concepts from social entrepreneurship to study the triggers of ImS entrepreneurship and the process through which ImS entrepreneurs build and operate ImS companies. The chapter also looks into the institutional influences that have shaped the ImS model. Most importantly, the findings demonstrate the inherent difficulty of scaling and sustaining the ImS model, as it is the individual entrepreneurs intense personal experiences, not market-based considerations, which play a crucial role in launching new ImS companies. Drawing on the initial findings of Chapter 2, Chapter 3 explores the challenges of operating ImS companies in marginalized communities. Specifically, the chapter analyzes how ImS companies frame their ventures to the local community, drawing on frame alignment literature. The findings from this chapter suggest that local communities are not passive recipients of ImS companies framing work and may indeed resist ImS company activities for reasons such as the perceived incompatibility of the ImS model with local norms and belief systems and perceptions of inequality stemming from the merit-based recruitment strategies underpinning the model. The chapter finds that deployment of progress, family, material-benefit and egalitarianism frames may help ImS companies to overcome resistance, and gain the acceptance of local communities. While Chapters 2 and 3 focus on the ImS companies and their founders, Chapter 4 analyzes the challenges faced by marginalized individuals as they transition into the ImS workplace from their relatively traditional community spaces. The findings suggest that the distinct norms and values embodied in the community space and the ImS workplace create challenges for ImS employees. In response to these challenges, the findings show that ImS employees craft a variety of coping strategies such as integration and compartmentalization to manage work and non-work boundaries. ImS employees were also found to create fictive kinships, experiment with provisional selves and craft jobs to cope with the socioculturally alien environment of ImS workplaces. Overall, the thesis makes theoretical and practical contributions to the small but growing business and management literature on the ImS phenomenon. The thesis also makes theoretical contributions to the literatures on social entrepreneurship, frame alignment and organizational studies

Impact sourcing in India: trends and implications

This paper focuses on impact sourcing which refers to a type of business process outsourcing activity whereby service providers elect to provide high quality, information-based services to clients by purposefully employing youth from low-income communities to carry out simple data handling tasks. Whilst this activity proliferated across countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America from 2010 providing jobs and skills to many individuals, its growth seems to have been constrained in recent years. In order to explain this phenomenon, we undertake a longitudinal study of impact sourcing based on the case of Karnataka which has been a prominent player in this sector since 2008. We commence by describing the operations of three impact sourcing enterprises in the state and locate this activity within the broader scope of state government policy focusing on two key aspects. First, we assess the adequacy of state support for rural entrepreneurs to sustain their operations for client companies, and second whether there has been sufficient policy focus on ameliorating the socio-economic context within which impact sourcing activity takes place. Finally, we reflect on important implications of our findings for further research on impact sourcing in the field of information systems and for policy prescriptions in order to create a conducive environment within which this socially-focused business activity can thrive

Research & Strategic Partnerships: Quarterly Review, Volume 1, Issue 4

This fourth issue of the Research and Strategic Partnerships (RSP) Quarterly Review highlights both the outward- and inward-facing aspects of PSU’s research enterprise. Ours is a university built on partnerships, and nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the just-opened Collaborative Life Sciences Building in South Waterfront, conceived, designed and executed in close coordination with OHSU and OSU. Some of the largest biomedical breakthroughs to come from the CLSB may be discovered at the smallest scales using electron microscopy techniques advanced by our Center for Electron Microscopy and Nanotechnology. PSU is a player in nanoscience in large part because Portland is home to companies like FEI and Intel that develop and use these futuristic devices. But PSU partners not only with high tech industry. Local nonprofits like the Portland Housing Center, which seeks to broaden access to homeownership, look to PSU faculty to help design creative solutions. And infusing enthusiastic energy into all of these partnerships are our students; a few of the dozens of research projects on display in this spring’s Student Research Symposium are summarized in this issue.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/rsp_quarterlyreview/1003/thumbnail.jp

The Digital Continent:Placing Africa in Planetary Networks of Work

Only ten years ago, there were more internet users in countries like France or Germany than in all of Africa put together. But much has changed in a decade. The year 2018 marks the first year in human history in which a majority of the world’s population are now connected to the internet. This mass connectivity means that we have an internet that no longer connects only the world’s wealthy. Workers from Lagos to Johannesburg to Nairobi and everywhere in between can now apply for and carry out jobs coming from clients who themselves can be located anywhere in the world. Digital outsourcing firms can now also set up operations in the most unlikely of places in order to tap into hitherto disconnected labour forces. With CEOs in the Global North proclaiming that ‘location is a thing of the past’ (Upwork, 2018), and governments and civil society in Africa promising to create millions of jobs on the continent, the book asks what this ‘new world of digital work’ means to the lives of African workers. It draws from a year-long fieldwork in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda, with over 200 interviews with participants including gig workers, call and contact centre workers, self-employed freelancers, small-business owners, government officials, labour union officials, and industry experts. Focusing on both platform-based remote work and call and contact centre work, the book examines the job quality implications of digital work for the lives and livelihoods of African workers

Transforming the construction sector: an institutional complexity perspective

Purpose Government initiatives to improve construction have increasingly become more focused on introducing a repertoire of technologies to transform the sector. In the literature on construction industry transformation through policy-backed initiatives, how firms will respond to the demands to adopt and use innovative technologies and approaches is taken for granted, and there is scarcely any attention given to the institutional implications of transformation agenda. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these gaps and offer directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach Following a synthesis of literature on the UK’s industry transformation agenda, the authors use the concepts of institutional logics, arrangements, complexity and strategic responses to suggest seven research questions that are at the nexus of policy-backed transformation and institutional theory. Findings In this paper, the authors argue that increasing demands for the adoption and use of digital technologies, platforms, manufacturing approaches and other “industry-4.0”-related technologies will reconfigure existing logics and arrangements in the construction industry, creating a problem of institutional complexity for general contracting firms in particular. Originality/value The questions are relevant for our understanding of the nature of institutional complexities, change, strategic firm responses, field-level dynamics and implications for the construction industry in relation to the transformation agenda. This paper is positioned to spur future research towards exploring the consequences of industry transformation through the lens of institutional theory. This research forms part of the Centre for Digital Built Britain’s (CDBB) work at the University of Cambridge within the Construction Innovation Hub (CIH). The Construction Innovation Hub is funded by UK Research and Innovation through the Industrial Strategy Fund

Broadband Internet Access as a Localized Resource for Facilitating Information Security Knowledge

With an increasing number of threats to cybersecurity, research continues to focus on methods and behaviors by which individuals may better protect themselves. The availability of broadband infrastructure has been proposed to improve city and regional economic, educational, and health-related prospects, but its impact on facilitating security knowledge gathering has yet to be studied. This study assesses the influence of broadband availability, using data collected from 894 Internet users from across the United States, with multiple analysis techniques supported by geographical information systems (GIS). The results indicate that broadband access, in addition to age and education level, is associated with higher levels of security knowledge. Moreover, geographical weighted regression analyses suggest that the significant variables vary in influence based on their locality

The Digital Continent

Only ten years ago, there were more internet users in countries like France or Germany than in all of Africa put together. But much has changed in a decade. The year 2018 marks the first year in human history in which a majority of the world’s population are now connected to the internet. This mass connectivity means that we have an internet that no longer connects only the world’s wealthy. Workers from Lagos to Johannesburg to Nairobi and everywhere in between can now apply for and carry out jobs coming from clients who themselves can be located anywhere in the world. Digital outsourcing firms can now also set up operations in the most unlikely of places in order to tap into hitherto disconnected labour forces. With CEOs in the Global North proclaiming that ‘location is a thing of the past’ (Upwork, 2018), and governments and civil society in Africa promising to create millions of jobs on the continent, the book asks what this ‘new world of digital work’ means to the lives of African workers. It draws from a year-long fieldwork in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda, with over 200 interviews with participants including gig workers, call and contact centre workers, self-employed freelancers, small-business owners, government officials, labour union officials, and industry experts. Focusing on both platform-based remote work and call and contact centre work, the book examines the job quality implications of digital work for the lives and livelihoods of African workers