Effects of Outsourcing Information Technology Jobs in Australia

INTRODUCTION

In the 1970s and late 1980s, the reduction of different trade barriers and improvement in transport exposed jobs in manufacturing to global competition (Beaumont & Sohal 2014). In modern time Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is now revealing the service based jobs to a similar competitive force. Australia’s economic growth and business sectors are projected to grow even more in the years to come (Brooks 2016). This concept makes most companies in the country come up with creative ways for them to stay in the market. Most business owners are often in search of sustainable and new ways to accomplish efficient performance to drive the bottom line, and most of them have found outsourcing to be the way (Brooks 2016). Most of the outsourcing done is in the service-based industries such as Information Technology (Webster & Harding 2013). The significance of this research is to identify the problems and opportunities that come with outsourcing IT jobs in Australia. Some outsourcing statistics show that eighty per cent of businesses in Australia tend to outsource and often use offshore IT resources (Munch 2015). This eighty per cent has dramatically increased the businesses domestic workforce to more than one hundred per cent (Munch 2015). In one research it was identified that around two to three business owners said that their main objective for outsourcing was to increase their team’s skills and knowledge and give them the aptitude to scale fast when new challenges arrive (Beaumont & Sohal 2014). This offers a firm basis to identify the opportunities and problems that come with outsourcing IT jobs.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 

Research Instruments

There will be both two data collection techniques in this research, and they include:

Quantitative Approach 

In this approach, it will consist of survey and questioners. The survey will be an ideal method for gathering data from a sample of people with the intent of generalising the results to a bigger population. Face to face, surveys will be used to give a critical source of insight and data for almost every individual engaged in the research while the questioner will be used to measure the attitudes, behaviour, opinions, intentions and preference of the subjects in question.

Qualitative Approach    

This approach will involve using interviews. The intention here will be to help understand what people think about the effects of outsourcing IT jobs in Australia and also why they tend to think so. This method is ideal for it tends to create room for in-depth questioning of the respondents based on the responses they give while the researcher tries to comprehend their feelings and motivations (Silverman 2016).

Regarding this approach, the primary activity will be to interview six to twelve people who are in a focus group. Also, observation will also be used to assess areas and situations where questioners and interviews cannot capture accurate viable information. Furthermore, observation can be of significant help in researching since it is somewhat easy to observe what people are doing or saying, instead of what they say they do. 

Sample Size

The research as mentioned earlier will use both qualitative and quantitative techniques. It is apparent that the choice of the sample size is an essential determination for a project (Silverman 2016). A small sample tends to yield unreliable results while an overly large sample often demands a lot of resources and time. The predicated sample size is estimated to be eight to ten for the qualitative approach and fifty to eighty for the quantitative approach and for the focus group it is predicted to be two focus groups. 

Sampling Approach 

 Convenience Approach 

  One of the approaches that will be used is the convenience sampling approach. This approach is ideal for it is incredibly prompt, economical, and uncomplicated. There are no criteria that need to be considered to be part of the sample, and thus it becomes incredibly simplified to include different elements in the sample (Kothari 2014). In this approach, every aspect of the population happens to be eligible to be part of the sample and is dependent on the proximity of the researcher to get included in the sample.

Snowball Approach 

This approach will be used when the features to be possessed by the given samples are difficult and rare to find. In some cases, some people may not want to be found and asked questions or even interviews that will help in the research but the participants of the study would likely know different people in the same situation as themselves, and they could inform others information about the advantages of the research and reassure them of confidentiality.   

Research Schedule

The research will involve participants from different parts of Australia to make it viable, and the schedule of the project is as shown in the Gantt chart below.

	August	September	October
Identify the topic
Identify the sample size
Quantitative and qualitative research
Analysis of gathered information
Documentation

LIMITATION 

The critical limitation that can be found in this research is that after completing the findings interpretation, it is possible to discover that the manner at which the data was gathered may inhibit the ability to carry out a thorough analysis of the outcomes. For instance, it is possible to regret not including a particular question in the survey that, in retrospect, could have assisted in addressing a specific issue that came up later in the study. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Beaumont, N. and Sohal, A., 2014. Outsourcing in australia. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24(7), pp.688-689.

Brooks, N., 2016. Understanding IT outsourcing and its potential effects on IT workers and their environment. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 46(4), pp.46-53.

Kothari, C.R., 2014. Research methodology: Methods and techniques. New Age International.

Munch, J.R., 2015. Whose job goes abroad? International outsourcing and individual job separations. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 112(2), pp.339-360.

Silverman, D. ed., 2016. Qualitative research. Sage.

Webster, E. and Harding, G., 2013. Outsourcing public employment services: the Australian experience. Australian Economic Review, 34(2), pp.231-242.