Offshoring and the high end of the job market

– a cross sector analysis

Paper by Nana Wesley Hansen

Across two sectors, namely the information and telecommunication industry (ICT) and the medico industry, the paper analyses six Danish based global companies and their strategies concerning offshoring of highly skilled jobs. Both industries are dependent on highly skilled personnel for staying competitive in the market. The paper demonstrates how lead companies’ offshoring strategies vary, and how the two sectors show both similarities and vast differences in the consequences for highly skilled employees. Offshoring has positive as well as negative effects for highly skilled employees. The cases confirm that on an individual level offshoring result in increasing demands for internal flexibility in working time across industries, but also that the international working environment is in many respects regarded as highly rewarding. Furthermore on a company level, offshoring increases staff mobility as a result of the knowledge intensive firms’ move towards more relational governance of value chains. Thus, there is a close connection between offshoring and global mobility among highly skilled labour.

The full paper was presented at the SASE conference, Chicago, USA, July 10-12 2014.