How the Past of Outsourcing and Offshoring is the Future of Post-Pandemic Remote Work: A Typology, a Model, and a Review

Christopher Erickson and Peter Norlander

No 913, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: Information and communication technology (ICT) challenges traditional assumptions about the capacity to manage workers beyond organizational and physical boundaries. A typology connects a variety of non-traditional work organizations made possible by ICT, including offshoring, outsourcing, remote work, virtual companies, and platforms. A model illustrates how new technology serves as a proximate cause for a revision of social contracts between capital, labor and government reached through bargaining, and how external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the institutional environment, and limitations in practice influence how technology changes the organization of work. An historical case illustrates the general features of the model, and a review of the outsourcing and offshoring literature provides instructive examples of how features of the model will potentially influence the future of post-pandemic remote work.

Keywords: information and communication technology; institutional change; offshoring; outsourcing; remote work (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J44 J50 J60 O30 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict, nep-isf and nep-lma
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Journal Article: How the past of outsourcing and offshoring is the future of post‐pandemic remote work: A typology, a model and a review (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:913

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