Cultural Sensemaking in Offshore Information Technology Service Suppliers: A Cultural Frame Perspective1
通过对一家中国IT服务公司的案例研究，揭示了员工如何通过“文化框架”的构建与调整，与不同文化背景的客户有效协作，尤其强调了双文化员工在框架桥接中的关键作用。
In today’s global IT outsourcing relationships, individual employees need to operate effectively in culturally diverse environments. Such intercultural interactions can be especially challenging for members of IT service suppliers based in offshore locations. Through an in-depth qualitative case study of one of the largest China-based IT service firms with diverse clients from Japan, the United States, and China, this research elaborates the cultural sensemaking activities of the supplier’s individual employees. Specifically, drawing on the dynamic constructivist view of culture, this study develops the construct of “cultural frames” in the context of global IT outsourcing to characterize the knowledge structures guiding an individual’s collaboration with diverse clients. A portfolio of cultural frames emerges and evolves through the individual’s cultural sensemaking activities, which consist of the iterative enactment, alignment, and retention of cultural frames. In the cultural sensemaking process, the activity of frame bridging, in particular, creates significant value for the outsourcing relationship, and is especially salient among bicultural employees.