The Local Impact of Globalization in South and Southeast Asia: Offshore Business Processes in Services Industries

In the past two decades, several millions of IT-enabled services jobs have been relocated or ‘offshored’ from the US and Europe to, in particular, low cost economies around the world. Most of these jobs so far have landed in South and South-East Asia, with India and the Philippines receiving the bulk of them. This has caused profound changes in the international division of labour, and has had correspondingly wide social and economic effects.

This book examines how this ‘next wave in globalization’ affects people and places in South and South-East Asia. It brings together twelve case studies from India, the Philippines, China, Hong Kong and Thailand, and explores how and for whom services offshoring creates opportunities, triggers local economic transformations and produces challenges. This book in addition compares how different countries take part in this ‘second global shift’, investigates service-sector driven economic development from a historical perspective, and engages with the question whether and to what extent services offer a new promising avenue of sustained economic growth for developing countries. It argues that service-led development in developing countries is not easy for all the workers involved, or a guaranteed path to sustained economic development and prosperity.

This volume stands out from other books in the field in its exploration of the social and economic outcomes in the cities and countries where services have been located. Based on cutting edge empirical research and original data, the volume offers a state-of-the-art contribution to this growing debate. The book provides valuable insights for students, scholars and professionals interested in services offshoring, socio-economic development and contemporary transformations in South and South-East Asia.

Bart Lambregts is post-doc researcher with the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam, and lectures urban planning at the Faculty of Architecture, Kasetsart University, in Bangkok.

Niels Beerepoot is assistant professor at the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies of the University of Amsterdam.

Robert C. Kloosterman is Professor of Economic Geography and Planning at the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam.