Anxiety and Psychological Security in Offshoring Relationships: The Role and Development of Trust as Emotional Commitment
Authors: Kelly, Séamas; Noonan, Camilla
Journal: Journal of Information Technology (2008)
DOI: 10.1057/jit.2008.15
<jats:p>In this paper we focus on the neglected role of anxiety and psychological security in organizational life, specifically in the context of the organization and development of offshoring relationships that extend across time and geography. In contrast with much of the literature on offshoring (and inter-organizational relationships more generally), which tends to take a very conventional rational decision-making perspective on the phenomenon in question, we emphasize the less tangible, emotional dimensions. In particular, we are concerned with understanding the processes by which clients, who have little or no previous experience of offshoring, may develop and sustain adequate levels of psychological security to enable them to bracket risk and productively engage in such unfamiliar and alien work arrangements. To this end, we draw on Anthony Giddens’ distinctive, non-cognitivist conception of trust, supplemented by other important contributions in the area, to explore the processes by which a sense of psychological security and stability is achieved in the face of the quotidian anxieties provoked by engagement in these contemporary modes of global organizing. Our synthesized…