How the outsourcing companies make more knowledgeable workers give up resistance when unjust dismissals happen in IT staff outsourcing? Utilizing the methods of participant observation and interviews, a case study of the listed Chinese outsourcing company Ruii is examined, which is among the top three human resource service companies in China and has recently undergone a strategic business transformation from outsourcing basic positions to IT staffing. The study reveals that outsourcing companies must conform to clients' demands for flexibility in a fiercely competitive market with an unbalanced supply and demand. As a result, more workers are being returned, which often results in dismissals that must comply with stringent dismissal restrictions under labor law. To mitigate the compensation amount and risks associated with dismissals and overcome resistance and reluctance to flexibility among outsourced laborers, the outsourcing company endeavors to make laborers ‘compromise.’: (1) compromising before resistance, laborers compromise for the sake of maintaining friendly relationships with staff deliverers before resistance; (2) compromising when losing weapons, outsourcing companies show acquiescence to some workers' falsified records during recruitment while utilizing them when discharging; and (3) compromising for living, workers tend to defend their rights while also being fearful of prolonged legal battles, leading them to compromise for survival. Therefore, outsourcing companies have developed a process strategy for managing redundancies to mitigate the amount of compensation and risks linked with dismissals.

Authors:
Yun Xiong, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology/ Peking University, Germany

About the Presenter(s)
Yun Xiong is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Peking University and a visiting fellow at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. Yun's doctoral project is focused on IT staff outsourcing in China.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule

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