The snowball effect : global sourcing as an accelerator of economic globalization

Abstract

Drawing on case studies of the strategies of global providers of outsourced business services, this article argues that the concept of ‘offshore outsourcing’ is no longer adequate to describe the restructuring of global value chains that is currently taking place. Practices of global sourcing, moving up the value chain, ‘follow the customer’ and ‘follow the sun’ have led to a process whereby a new breed of multinational business service supplier, growing rapidly through transfers of personnel, acquisitions and mergers, is both a result of past outsourcing and relocation and a driver of further globalisation of IT and business service employment. The implications are far-reaching, both for employment and for regional development.