Doctoral Research Project

Title:

"The psychosocial implications of outsourcing on Indian call center employees. A case of virtual acculturation?"

Abstract:

Newspapers, and magazines around the world are full of the implications of globalization and technology on our lives. Outsourcing has attracted a high level of interests not only from businesses trying to cut-costs & maximize profits, but also from general media owing to its effects on jobs in the countries which are outsourcing work to others like India. However, the human resource aspects of outsourcing on the employees of such firms are relatively unknown. If the HRD aspects are at all covered, they tend to concentrate more on stress than the impact of outsourcing itself.

I with the help of psychometric and demographic surveys, try to find out what implications do the new & semi-foreign work conditions have on the lives and personalities of the Indian outsourced call-center employees. And through a series of interviews, I then try to analyze why these changes, if they exist, are taking place.

Using the theories & studies of and on acculturation, psychological contract, behavior modification, and cognitive-dissonance, I try to find out, if outsourcing relates with long distance acculturation-via-diffusion.

The psycho-social implications of Outsourcing
Time Magazine is interested in the implication's of India rise for America, My study, tries to find out what happens to the people using these headsets in India :-)