Winter 2006 Alumnae Quarterly Web Extra

Global Outsourcing

by Erica Winter

Global outsourcing means different things to different people. Strictly speaking, “outsourcing” means that a company has hired a service provider from another company to do a certain job; “global outsourcing” means that these two companies are in different countries.

Many in the U.S. use the phrase to mean any company that has moved jobs overseas—whether the jobs technically stay within that company (and just move to its foreign office, for example) or not. In the U.S., job loss is a big part of the outsourcing image. For people in Romania, it could mean the loss of jobs because of an influx of foreign companies into the country. For people in India, it could mean an influx of foreign jobs, with the companies staying in the U.S. or Europe.

Worldwide, we all have one definition in common, however; when we talk about global outsourcing, it means change.

See the full article on global outsourcing in the Winter 2006 Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly.

With Web Extras on Global Outsourcing, you can:

• Read more about the documentary Nalini By Day – Nancy By Night by Sonali Gulati ’96
• Learn how one young alumna experienced global outsourcing in both Massachusetts and Romania
• See a new book on the global economy by Professor Eva Paus
• Learn more about the political and business threads connected to outsourcing
• Read more alumnae thoughts on this global trend and the impact it is having in the United States and abroad
• Get more information on Mount Holyoke College’s upcoming conference, The New Global Division of Labor: Winners and Losers from Offshore Outsourcing hosted on March 3-4, 2006 by the Center for Global Initiatives.

Never forget that the truest measure of success, the purest passions, come always from within ourselves. — U.S. congresswoman Nita M. Lowey ’59; commencement address, 1994