Offshoring White-Collar Work: An Explorative Investigation of the Processes and Mechanisms in Two Danish Manufacturing Firms

The globalisation of standardised manufacturing operations based predominantly on blue-collar work began some decades ago. However, the recent developments in offshoring also include the spread of the phenomenon to new occupational areas based on knowledge-intensive white-collar work. The purpose of this paper is two folded: to explain why knowledge-intensive service work in manufacturing firms is increasingly subject to offshoring and to understand the effects of this process on integration mechanisms for the firms involved. The empirical part of the study is based on two qualitative case studies of Danish manufacturers, and on the basis of these, we first argue that the drivers of white-collar work offshoring in many respects are parallel to those of the earlier wave of blue-collar work offshoring. However, the existing offshoring and outsourcing frameworks do not necessarily adequately address the relationship between the two ‘waves’ of offshoring. Second, our results suggest that white-collar offshoring in manufacturing firms pose higher requirements to the organisational configuration and capabilities due to, ceteris paribus, the higher complexity of the white-collar tasks subjected to offshoring. By relating white-collar work offshoring to integration means companies instigate to manage it, we attempt to bridge the existing knowledge gaps and advance understanding of the process of white-collar work offshoring and its implications.