La délocalisation et son impact sur les employés transférés: une étude de cas dans le secteur des services

Economic transformations aimed at creating a unique international market, technology innovations and the availability of a highly-skilled workforce in low-wage countries urge company managers to reassess their organization and the location of their production capacities. This, in turn, increases flexibility, the only guarantee to ensure the survival of the organization (Atkinson, 1987; Patry, 1994; Purcell et Purcell, 1998; Kennedy, 2002; Kallaberg, Reynolds, Marsden, 2003 and Berger, 2006).  One strategy displayed by organizations in order to remain competitive is outsourcing (Kennedy, 2002; Amiti and Wei, 2004; Barthélemy, 2004; Trudeau and Martin, 2006; Olsen, 2006).  Technology, globalization and access to a new pool of highly skilled worforce make production fragmentation easier than it had been in past years and each link of the chain production attracts great amounts of attention to an optimum localization option (Hertveldt et al., 2005).  In these conditions, all activities requiring no complex physical interaction between colleagues or between an employee and a customer are prone to be transferred to a subcontractor, be it here or abroad (Farrell, 2005).  Most researches about outsourcing essentially concentrate on managerial motives to resort to it (Lauzon-Duguay, 2005) or on organizations’ successes or failures when trying to establish a strategy of that nature (Logan, Faught and Ganster, 2004).  Nonetheless, potential impacts of outsourcing employees have rarely been considered in previous researches (Benson, 1998; Kessler, Coyle-Shapiro and Purcell, 1999 and Logan et al., 2004).  However, human aspects must also be considered seriously because it could be the cause of success or failure of such a process.  The human aspects surrounding the outsourcing process seem to play a role in the impact of outsourcing on employees.  Thus, according to Kessler et al. (1999), three general factors would influence how employees perceive outsourcing: the way employees feel they were treated by their former employer (context), the degree of attractiveness of their new employment (pull factor) and the reality of employee experiences following the change in employer (landing).  This research aims at understanding the impact of an organization’s decision to contract out a number of its activities on the employees who are therefore transferred to the subcontractor.  More precisely, we want to understand what consequences the outsourcing of an organization named “Source” (the one who gives the activities and the employees) to an organization named “Destination” (the one who takes over the given activities and the workforce) can be found on the transferred employees when looking at their quality of life at work and at their working conditions.  Many questions arise at this level.  What is a successful transfer from the employees’ point of view?  Are quality of life at work and working conditions impacted?  To what level do the human aspects have an influence on the impact of the outsourcing of employees?  What would be the best possible way to manage that kind of relocation from the employer’s point of view?  The analysis model is composed of four variables.  The first dependent variable (DV1) of our model relates to the quality of life at work of transferred employees.  The second dependent variable (DV2) refers to the working conditions of transferred employees.  The third variable, the independent variable (IV) relates back to the outsourcing of activities which contains two dimensions: (1) the decision of outsourcing and (2) the implementation process.  The fourth variable, the moderator variable (MV), is the management of the human aspects that are considered on a three-dimensional basis: (1) context, (2) pull factor and (3) landing.  Three research hypotheses result from our analysis model.  The first two relate to the fact that outsourcing leads to a deterioration in the quality of life at work (H1) and of the working conditions (H2).  The third hypothesis states that the management of the human aspects moderates the impact of employees who are contracted out (H3).  This research consists of a case study conducted on a financial institution (Source) which outsourced its technology activities to an expert in IT organization (Destination).  Eleven open-ended interviews were conducted with the key-players (transferred employees and managers from both organizations).  Results show that outsourcing generally has a negative impact on transferred employees.  On the other hand, it is not possible to generalize this assertion on all indicators.  Results highlight the negative consequences found in intrinsic job motivation, organizational commitment as well as job satisfaction linked to its relational aspect.    Outsourcing has also led to deterioration in working conditions of transferred employees when it comes to the level of job security, tasks content and evaluation, health and safety at work as well as the duration of work. But, from the employees point of view, the most significant consequences are related to the salary and the fringe benefits.  The consequences of contracting out are, however, positive when it comes to professional accomplishment and job satisfaction linked to its technical aspect.  As for interpersonal trust at work, work coordination, professional training and work location, there seems to have no significant consequences, according to what employees said when interviewed.  Finally, results highlight the significant moderator effect of the human factors on the impact of outsourcing on the transferred employees.  The financial institution (Source) tried to decrease the impact of outsourcing, but it was not sufficient.  Employees were strongly attached to their first employer and did not want to leave it for another organization holding a different company culture that did not appeal to them.  That is why the management of the human aspects contributed to amplifying the negative impacts of outsourcing, especially the ones related to the quality of life at work of transferred employees.  Key words: (1) outsourcing, (2) transferred employees, (3) quality of life at work, (4) working conditions, (5) Information technologies (IT), (6) organization, (7) human resources management.

Keyphrases: outsourcing, transferred employees, quality of life at work, working conditions, information technologies (IT), organization, human resources management