IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/85048.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The domestic turn: business processing outsourcing and the growing automation of Kenyan organisations

Author

Listed:
  • Mann, Laura
  • Graham, Mark

Abstract

After observing the growth of the Indian and Filipino Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sectors, Kenyan policy-makers and managers made substantial investments in international internet infrastructure and BPO marketing campaigns. While observers continue to discuss the sector in terms of its international work opportunities, in recent years the sector has increasingly focused on contracts sourced from Kenyan and other East African clients. The government has also refocused efforts on attracting international BPO companies. This domestic turn signals both the difficulties of gaining access to overseas work due to the power of incumbents and the increasing use of the internet and ICT-enabled automation within Kenyan organisations. In effect, better connectivity has enabled a two-way globalisation of services: Kenyan BPO companies can access international work opportunities but connectivity has also contributed to the inflow of international business practices into Kenya. The conclusion examines what these shifts might entail for the sector and its workers in future.

Suggested Citation

  • Mann, Laura & Graham, Mark, 2016. "The domestic turn: business processing outsourcing and the growing automation of Kenyan organisations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 85048, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:85048
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/85048/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kuldeep Kumar & Paul C van Fenema & Mary Ann von Glinow, 2009. "Offshoring and the global distribution of work: Implications for task interdependence theory and practice," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 40(4), pages 642-667, May.
    2. Dossani, Rafiq & Kenney, Martin, 2007. "The Next Wave of Globalization: Relocating Service Provision to India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 772-791, May.
    3. Philippe Bocquier, 2005. "Informal sector versus informal contracts in Nairobi, Kenya," Working Papers DT/2005/10, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    4. Silvia Massini & Marcela Miozzo, 2012. "Outsourcing and Offshoring of Business Services: Challenges to Theory, Management and Geography of Innovation," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(9), pages 1219-1242, October.
    5. David L. Levy, 2005. "Offshoring in the New Global Political Economy," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 685-693, May.
    6. Milberg,William & Winkler,Deborah, 2013. "Outsourcing Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107026995.
    7. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4396 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Catherine Durnell Cramton, 2001. "The Mutual Knowledge Problem and Its Consequences for Dispersed Collaboration," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(3), pages 346-371, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. DILI Ramces & BUNCAD Yve Joerella & PEREZ Yveth Jasmin, 2022. "Bpo Industry In Achieving Socio-Economic Development Inclusiveness And Local Governance In The Philippines," Management of Sustainable Development, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 14(2), pages 22-26, December.
    2. Kleibert, Jana M. & Mann, Laura, 2020. "Capturing Value amidst Constant Global Restructuring? Information-Technology-Enabled Services in India, the Philippines and Kenya," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 1057-1079.
    3. Mann, Laura & Kleibert, Jana Maria, 2020. "Capturing value amidst constant global restructuring? Information technology enabled services in India, the Philippines and Kenya," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103356, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Melia, Elvis, 2020. "African jobs in the digital era: Export options with a focus on online labour," IDOS Discussion Papers 3/2020, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    5. Jana M. Kleibert & Laura Mann, 0. "Capturing Value amidst Constant Global Restructuring? Information-Technology-Enabled Services in India, the Philippines and Kenya," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 0, pages 1-23.
    6. Manning, Stephan, 2022. "From mainstream to niche: How value regimes shift in emerging economy upgrading," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(6).
    7. Jana M. Kleibert & Laura Mann, 2020. "Capturing Value amidst Constant Global Restructuring? Information-Technology-Enabled Services in India, the Philippines and Kenya," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(4), pages 1057-1079, September.
    8. Keijser, Charlotte & Belderbos, René & Goedhuys, Micheline, 2021. "Governance and learning in global, regional, and local value chains: The IT enabled services industry in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    9. Ayomikun Idowu & Amany Elbanna, 2022. "Digital Platforms of Work and the Crafting of Career Path: The Crowdworkers’ Perspective," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 441-457, April.
    10. Dianah Ngui Muchai & Peter Kimuyu, 2017. "Prospects for information and communications technology-enabled services in Kenya: The case of the mobile money transfer industry," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-86, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Laura Mann, 2018. "Left to Other Peoples’ Devices? A Political Economy Perspective on the Big Data Revolution in Development," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(1), pages 3-36, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rosa Grimaldi & Elisa Mattarelli & Andrea Prencipe & Maximilian von Zedtwitz, 2010. "Offshoring of Intangibles: Organizational and Strategic Issues," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 331-336.
    2. Niccolò Pisani & Joan Enric Ricart, 2016. "Offshoring of Services: A Review of the Literature and Organizing Framework," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 385-424, June.
    3. Manning, Stephan, 2014. "Mitigate, tolerate or relocate? Offshoring challenges, strategic imperatives and resource constraints," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 522-535.
    4. Manning, Stephan, 2013. "New Silicon Valleys or a new species? Commoditization of knowledge work and the rise of knowledge services clusters," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 379-390.
    5. Charlotte Keijser & Michiko Iizuka, 2018. "Looking Beyond Global Value Chains in Capacity Development: The Case of the IT-Enabled Service (ITES) Sector in South Africa," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(3), pages 442-461, July.
    6. Keijzer, Charlotte & Iizuka, Michiko, 2017. "Pathways for capacity building in heterogeneous value chains: Evidence from the case of IT-enabled services in South Africa," MERIT Working Papers 2017-012, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    7. Valle, Sandra & García, Francisco & Avella, Lucía, 2015. "Offshoring Intermediate Manufacturing: Boost or Hindrance to Firm Innovation?," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 117-134.
    8. Jensen, Peter D. Ørberg, 2012. "A passage to India: A dual case study of activities, processes and resources in offshore outsourcing of advanced services," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 311-326.
    9. Florence Duvivier & Carine Peeters, 2011. "The use of expatriates in the offshoring of services - Framework and research propositions," Working Papers CEB 11-059, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Gooris, Julien & Peeters, Carine, 2014. "Home–Host Country Distance in Offshore Governance Choices," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 73-86.
    11. Luo, Yadong & Wang, Stephanie Lu & Jayaraman, Vaidyanathan & Zheng, Qinqin, 2013. "Governing business process offshoring: Properties, processes, and preferred modes," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 407-419.
    12. Schubert, Torben & Baier, Elisabeth & Rammer, Christian, 2016. "Technological capabilities, technological dynamism and innovation offshoring," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-044, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. repec:bla:jomstd:v:47:y:2010:i:s2:p:1417-1433 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Schmeisser, Bjoern, 2013. "A Systematic Review of Literature on Offshoring of Value Chain Activities," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 390-406.
    15. Stephan Manning & Silvia Massini & Carine Peeters & Arie Y. Lewin, 2018. "The changing rationale for governance choices: Early vs. late adopters of global services sourcing," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(8), pages 2303-2334, August.
    16. Silvia Massini & Marcela Miozzo, 2010. "Outsourcing and Offshoring of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services: Implication for Innovation," Chapters, in: Faïz Gallouj & Faridah Djellal (ed.), The Handbook of Innovation and Services, chapter 20, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Niccolò Pisani & Joan Enric Ricart, 2018. "Offshoring Innovation to Emerging Countries: The Effects of IP Protection and Cultural Differences on Firms’ Decision to Augment Versus Exploit Home-Base-Knowledge," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 58(6), pages 871-909, December.
    18. Martinez-Noya, Andrea & Garcia-Canal, Esteban & Guillen, Mauro F., 2012. "International R&D service outsourcing by technology-intensive firms: Whether and where?," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 18-37.
    19. Keijser, Charlotte & Belderbos, René & Goedhuys, Micheline, 2021. "Governance and learning in global, regional, and local value chains: The IT enabled services industry in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    20. Jana Maria Kleibert, 2015. "Islands of globalisation: Offshore Services and the Changing Spatial Divisions of Labour," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(4), pages 884-902, April.
    21. Jensen, Peter D. Ørberg, 2009. "A learning perspective on the offshoring of advanced services," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 181-193, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    RES-167- 25-0701; ES/I033777/1;

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:85048. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.