Content Management in an International Outsourcing Framework: A Perspective for Technical Communicators

Abstract

International outsourcing has become one of the more divisive topics of the new millennium. At the heart of this controversy is a concern related to exporting; namely the exporting of work (and jobs) from industrialized nations to developing ones. This focus on jobs has drawn attention from an equally important situation—the export of information, or content, to nations with different legal systems. Such practices, however, leave content, particularly personal information, open for abuse. One way to address this problem is to reconsider outsourcing from a content management vs. a professional staffing perspective. This chapter examines the content-related problems arising from international outsourcing situations. It begins with an overview of what international outsourcing is and then examines how outsourcing practices increasingly involve content management factors. This examination reveals that the new focus on content-based activities is changing the nature of outsourcing and is creating problems related to content management practices. The chapter then explores how communication practices can address such problems and presents content management strategies that organizations can use to address these problems. Through this format, readers can gain an understanding of how international outsourcing situations can provide technical communicators with the opportunity to take a more direct role in an organization’s content management activities in relation to international business practices.