In all the debate about creating local jobs, offshoring and outsourcing and employment, I found this piece in the Harvard Business Review Blog sometime ago refreshing. It highlights the complexity and reality of international trade today and calls upon businesses to defend their offshoring policies which should be "responsible".
Titled "Defense of Responsible Offshoring and Outsourcing" it chalks out a detailed defense on why it is beneficial for U.S. business interests to engage in outsourcing in emerging economies.
"What is not in flux is this fundamental reality: American companies will, for a wide variety of reasons relating to global dynamism, continue to participate in this transformative era of global economic change by increasing activities and hiring workers outside the U.S., especially in fast-growing foreign markets. (They may also, on a limited basis, move some jobs back to the U.S. for certain domestic markets due to rising costs abroad and labor productivity at home.) Yet, politicians oppose — or at least do not defend, and certainly do not fairly explain — this most fundamental international dimension of global business reality.
...
Offshoring and outsourcing today are like sex in the Victorian era: repressed or criticized in public discussion, much practiced in private behavior."
Though not politically acceptable, it sure made an interesting read. Is it a defense of the indefensible?
