Oxford English for Cheap: The Dark Side of Offshore Call Centers

By Mehdi Boussebaa.

Offshoring of call center work to ‘developing’ nations by Western companies has become a huge business. For many, it represents a positive force of ‘globalisation’, bringing not only labor cost benefits to Western companies but also employment and career opportunities to ‘developing’ nations. Others, however, see a darker side. Call center work is often exploitative, oppressive and talent-wasting as it puts university-educated workers through ‘dreary work, unsocial hours and Big Brother-style observation’ (The Observer, 30 October 2005). Plus, these workers often experience abuse and racism on the phone and even lose – partly at least – their identity in an attempt to pass for Westerners. According to Shehzad Nadeem, training Indian workers in a ‘neutral’ global English accent may have the effect that these workers get stripped of their mother tongue (The Guardian, 9 February 2011). A recently published study in the Journal of International Business Studies (Englishization in offshore call centers: A postcolonial perspective) goes even further: training and monitoring the ability of Indian workers to speak ‘pure’ English in some ways re-creates colonial relations and further divides the West from the rest. Why is that?

Beyond the Status Quo: How Corporate Sustainability Can Become a Reality

By Nardia Haigh.

Many would agree that corporate sustainability has become a buzzword, without actually changing corporate practices all that much. Recent news supports that: BP was found grossly negligent in the Deepwater Horizon disaster; the U.S. tobacco industry continues to rely on pre-teens working in the fields; and Pacific Gas & Electric is under legal scrutiny for allegedly causing a gas explosion due to suspected safety violations. So why aren’t all those sustainability strategies and programs, including new ‘sustainable’ products, the appointment of Chief Sustainability Officers, and the submission of regular sustainability reports, enabling corporations to become more sustainable? And what does it take to change that?

Does the Sharing Economy Reproduce Inequality?

By Eliad Shmuel.

The magazine Fast Company recently published an article with the provocative title: “Can The Sharing Economy End Discrimination?” The author, David Mandell, is CEO of the office sharing marketplace PivotDesk and promoter of a new trend now everybody talks about: the sharing economy. Like David Mandell, many believe that millennials choose access over ownership, and that services such as Airbnb and Uber are democratizing the hospitality and private transportation business. This is because, rather than relying on corporate power, branding and expensive marketing, users determine themselves, through ratings, whether they like and thus recommend certain service providers or not. Likewise, providers, e.g. of Airbnb apartments, choose users based on their ratings. Ratings and reviews may vary, but on average, according to Mandell, they provide fair and objective feedback. Each participant of the sharing economy has thus equal chances of becoming popular among others – no matter what educational or social background, what race, religion, gender or sexual preference. But is that really so?

Police, Privatization and Public Data on the Use of Force: A Response to Ferguson

By Pacey Foster.

Recent events in Ferguson, MO, have generated a national discussion about the growing militarization of the police and their accountability to the public for potential abuses of power. While Massachusetts does not have the worst national reputation in this regard, we do have deep and historical reasons to be concerned. Recent claims that some Massachusetts law enforcement agencies are in fact private corporations, and thus exempt from public reporting requirements, should only add to growing public concern.