Second-Class Citizens or Free Agents? Social Construction of Equity Perceptions of Contractors in Global Offshoring Arrangements
研究全球离岸安排中承包商如何因情境因素形成不同的公平感知，发现一个案例的承包商感到被污名化如“二等公民”，另一个则感到被赋权如“自由代理人”。
This study examines the ways in which perceptions of equity are socially constructed among contractors involved in global offshoring arrangements. A comparative case study of two global software organizations involved in offshore outsourcing reveals that global contractors across sites constructed different equity perceptions of similar foreign assignments due to a number of contextual factors. These contextual differences combined to produce social comparison processes that led to the construction of different equity perceptions. Drawing on a perceptual model of equity theory, we find that global contractors from one case felt stigmatized and treated inequitably as “second-class citizens”, while those from the other case felt empowered as “free agents.” Our findings contribute a context-sensitive explanation for the construction of different equity perceptions in global offshoring arrangements, with implications for global work design more broadly.