Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Risk, anxiety, and the production of comfort/trust in the context of globalized modes of working: the case of an Ireland-India IS offshoring relationship

  • Chapter
Outsourcing Global Services

Part of the book series: Technology, Work and Globalization ((TWG))

  • 192 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore the notion of anxiety and its management in the context of the development of an IS offshoring relationship between a small Irish financial services firm (NetTrade) and a large Indian software development company (IndiaSoft) with an extensive global presence. In particular, we focus on the “relationship work” required to produce and sustain a sense of emotional comfort on the part of the client in the context of, or what was constructed as, an extremely unfamiliar and risky venture. In so doing, we synthesize a novel theoretical perspective for illuminating key aspects of the phenomenon in question, by drawing mainly on Anthony Giddens’ ideas on risk, trust, and globalization (Giddens 1990, 1991, 1994) supplemented by important contributions from other authors (e.g. Zucker 1986, Mayer et al. 1995; Misztal 1996). Although we employ the concept of “trust” as a key analytical device, we use this interchangeably with “comfort.” This is an effort to emphasize the notion of trust as an “emotional commitment,” which clearly distinguishes Giddens’ analysis from the manner in which the concept has been generally used in the mainstream management literature.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Abbott, Pamela Y. (2004) Software-Export Strategies for Developing Countries: a Caribbean Perspective. Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC), 20(1): 1–19.

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen, T.J. and Cohen, S.I. (1969) Information Flows in Research and Development Laboratories. Administrative Science Quarterly, 14(1): 12–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barki, H., Rivard, S., and Talbot, J. (1993) Towards an Assessment of Software Development Risk. Journal of Management Information Systems, 10(2): 203–225.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bloomfield, Brian and Coombs, Rod (1992) Information Technology, Control and Power: The Centralization and Decentralization Debate Revisited. Journal of Management Studies, 29(4): 459–484.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boehm, B.W. and Demarco, T. (1997) Software Risk Management: Principles and Practices. IEEE Software, 14(3): 17–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cartwright, Susan and Cooper, Cary L. (1993) The Role of Culture Compatibility in Successful Organizational Marriage. The Academy of Management Executive, 7(2): 57–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casson, M. (1991) The Economics of Business Culture, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaiklin, Seth and Lave, Jean (eds) (1996) Understanding Practice: Perspectives on Activity and Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ciborra, Claudio and Willcocks, Leslie P. (2006) The Mind or the Heart? It Depends on the (Definition of) Situation. Journal of Information Technology, 21(3): 129–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cook, S. B. (1993) Imperial Affinities: Nineteenth Century Analogies and Exchanges between India and Ireland, Delhi: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Das, T.K. and Teng, Bing-Sheng (1998) Between Trust and Control: Developing Confidence in Partner Cooperation in Alliances. Academy of Management Review, 23(3): 491–512.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dasgupta, Partha (1988) Trust as a Commodity, in Diego Gambetta (ed.) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell: 49–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dreyfus, Hubert L. and Dreyfus, Stuart E. (2005) Expertise in Real World Contexts. Organization Studies, 26(5): 779–792.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Earl, Michael J. (1996) The Risks of Outsourcing IT. Sloan Management Review, 37(3): 26–32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flyvbjerg, Bent (2001) Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Flyvbjerg, Bent (2006) Five Misunderstandings about Case-Study Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12(2): 219–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foley, Tadhg and O’Connor, Maureen (eds) (2004) Ireland and India, Colonies: Culture and the Empire – Proceedings of the fourth Galway conference on colonialism, Dublin, Ireland: Irish Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gambetta, Diego (ed.) (1988) Trust: Making and breaking of Cooperative Relations, Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1994) Risk, Trust and Reflexivity, in Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, and Scott Lash (eds) Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, Cambridge: Polity, 184–197.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, E. (1956) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Good, David (1988) Individuals, Interpersonal Relations, and Trust, in Diego Gambetta (ed.) Trust: The Making and Breaking of Cooperative Relations, Oxford: Blackwell, 31–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart, Keith (1988) Kinship, Contract and Trust: The Economic Organization of Migrants in an African City Slum, in Diego Gambetta (ed.) Trust: The Making and Breaking of Cooperative Relations, Oxford: Blackwell, 176–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Imsland, Vegar and Sahay, Sundeep (2005) Negotiating Knowledge: The Case of a Russian-Norwegian Software Outsourcing Project. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 17(1): 101–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, Séamas (2005) New Frontiers in the Theorisation of ICT-Mediated Interaction? Exploring the Implications of a Situated learning epistemology, in William R. King and Reza Torkzadeh (eds) Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Las Vegas, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kern, Thomas (1997) The Gestalt of an Information Technology Outsourcing Relationship: An Exploratory Analysis, Eighteenth Annual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klepper, Robert (1995) The Management of Partnering Development in I/S Outsourcing. Journal of Information Technology, 10: 249–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knights, David (1990) Subjectivity, Power and the Labour Process, in David Knights and Hugh Willmott (eds) Labour Process Theory, London: Macmillan, 297–335.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knights, David (1992) Changing Spaces: The Disruptive Impact of a New Epistemological Location for the Study of Management. Academy of Management Review, 17(3): 514–536.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knights, David and Murray, Fergus (1994) Managers Divided: Organisation politics and Information Technology Management, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons).

    Google Scholar 

  • Knights, David and Willmott, Hugh (1999) Management Lives: Power and Identity in Work Organizations, London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kumar, Kuldeep and Willcocks, Leslie P. (1996) Offshore Outsourcing: a Country Too Far? Fourth European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), Lisbon, Portugal, 1309–1326.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lacity, Mary C. and Willcocks, Leslie P. (2001) Global Information Technology Outsourcing: In Search of Business Advantage, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levina, Natalia (2005) The Emergence of Boundary Spanning Competence in Practice: Implications for Implementation and Use of Information Systems. MIS Quarterly, 29(2): 335–363.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lorenz, Edward H. (1988) Neither Friends Nor Strangers: Informal Networks of Subcontracting in French Industry, in Diego Gambetta (ed.) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 194–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luhmann, Niklas (1979) Trust and Power, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 208.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luhmann, Niklas (1988) Familiarity, Confidence, Trust: Problems and Alternatives, in Diego Gambetta (ed.) Trust: Making and Breaking of Cooperative Relations, Oxford: Blackwell, 94–107.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, Donna, Lamming, R.C., Fynes, B., and de Búrca, S. (2005) The Development of an Outsourcing Process Model. International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications, 8(4): 347–359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mauss, M. ([1925] 1954) Essay on the Gift: An Archaic Form of Exchange, trans. I. Cunnison, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mayer, Roger C., Davis, James H., and Schoorman, F. David (1995) An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3): 709–734.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAllister, Daniel J. (1995) Affect- and Cognition-Based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal Cooperation in Organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 38(1): 24–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McFarlan, F. Warren and Nolan, Richard L. (1995) How to Manage an It Outsourcing Alliance. Sloan Management Review, 36(2): 9–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGrath, Kathy (2006) Affection Not Affliction: the Role of Emotions in Information Systems and Organizational Change. Information and Organization, 16: 277–303.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, Peter and O’Leary, Ted (1987) Accounting and the Construction of the Governable Person. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 12(3): 235–265.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Misztal, Barbara M. (1996) Trust in Modern Societies, Cambridge: Polity, 296.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, Brian and Carmel, Erran (2003) Offshore Software Sourcing by Small Firms: an Analysis of Risk, Trust and Control, Ifip Tc8 & Tc9 / WG8.2 & WG9.4 Working Conference on Information Systems Perspectives and Challenges in the Context of Globalization, Athens, Greece, 211–222.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, Brian and Sahay, Sundeep (2001) Some Political and Cultural Issues in the Globalisation of Software Development: Case Experience from Britain and India. Information and Organization, 11(1): 25–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, Brian and Sahay, Sundeep (2004) Embedded Knowledge and Offshore Software Development. Information and Organization, 14: 329–365.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pawlowski, S.D. and Robey, Daniel (2004) Bridging User Organizations: Knowledge Brokering and the Work of Information Technology Professionals. MIS Quarterly, 28(4): 645–672.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reed, M.I. (1992) The Sociology of Organizations: Themes, Perspectives and Prospects, in W.M. Williams (ed.) Studies in Sociology, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 301.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ring, Peter S. and Van de Ven, A.H. (1994) Developmental Process of Cooperative Interorganizational Relationships. Academy of Management Review, 19(1): 90–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ring, Peter Smith (1996) Fragile and Resilient Trust and Their Roles in Economic Exchange. Business and Society, 35(2): 148–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau, Denise M., Sitkin, S., Burt, R., and Camerer, C. (1998) Not So Different after All: A Cross-Discipline View of Trust. Academy of Management Review, 23(3): 393–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sahay, Sundeep (2003) Global Software Alliances: The Challenge of Standardization. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 15(1): 3–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sahay, Sundeep, Nicholson, Brian, and Krishna, S. (2003) Global IT Outsourcing: Software Development across Borders, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sturdy, Andrew (1997) The Consultancy Process – An Insecure Business? Journal of Management Studies, 34(3): 389–413.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tushman, M. L. (1977) Special Boundary Roles in Innovation Processes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22(4): 587–605.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walsham, Geoff (1995) Interpretive Case Studies in IS Research: Nature and Method. European Journal of Information Systems, 4: 74–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wastell, David G. (1996) The Fetish of Technique: Methodology as a Social Defence. Information Systems Journal, 6: 25–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wastell, David (2003) Organizational Discourse as Social Defence: Taming the Tiger of Electronic Government, in Eleanor Wynn, et al. (eds) Global and Organizational Discourse about Information Technology, Boston, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 179–195.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wenger, Etienne (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, in Roy Pea, John Seely Brown, and Jan Hawkins (eds) Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive, and Computational Perspectives, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willcocks, Leslie P. and Kern, Thomas (1998) IT Outsourcing as Strategic Partnering: The Case of the UK Inland Revenue. European Journal of Information Systems, 7, 29–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willcocks, Leslie P. and Lacity, Mary (1999) It Outsourcing in Insurance Services: Risk, Creative Contracting and Business Advantage, Information Systems Journal, 9, 163–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willcocks, Leslie P., Lacity, Mary, and Kern, Thomas (1999) Risk Mitigation in IT Outsourcing Strategy Revisited: Longitudinal Case Research at Lisa. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 8(3): 285–314.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willcocks, Leslie P. and Margetts, H. (1994) Risk Assessment in Information Systems. European Journal of Information Systems, 4(1): 1–12.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Bernard (1988) Formal Structures and Social Reality, in Diego Gambetta (ed.) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 3–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953) Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zollo, Maurizio, Reuer, Jeffrey J., and Singh, Harbir (2002) Interorganizational Routines and Performance in Strategic Alliances. Organization Science, 13(6): 701–713.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zucker, Lynne G. (1986) Production of Trust: Institutional Sources of Economic Structure 1840–1920. Research in Organizational Behaviour, 8: 53–111.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Séamas Kelly
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Camilla Noonan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2008 Séamas Kelly and Camilla Noonan

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Kelly, S., Noonan, C. (2008). Risk, anxiety, and the production of comfort/trust in the context of globalized modes of working: the case of an Ireland-India IS offshoring relationship. In: Outsourcing Global Services. Technology, Work and Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230227415_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation