this emerging need. Our findings are consistent with broader calls from education scholars who have advocated (in response to recent waves of technological change) emphasizing “softer” skills (such as complex communication) 14 in the U.S. educational system; for example, educators could interweave existing material in the IT curriculum with projects that promote teamwork, negotiation, and presentation skills.

In the future, this area of research would benefit from improved offshoring data, including more fine-grain measures of the task content of individual jobs. Data at the task level would allow researchers to test more nuanced models of which attributes make a job vulnerable to offshoring (such as those considering the modularity, codifiability, or information intensity of a worker’s task set). These tests would also provide insight into how jobs and educational programs can be designed so U.S.-based workers maximize the value they provide to the global economy. Furthermore, although our survey data was unique because it allowed us to capture fine-grain outcomes, a limitation of the data was its reliance on self-reported responses from employees and hiring managers that might be subject to bias. Evidence from other data sources could therefore be useful in validating these results.

Finally, although our study focused on job displacement, offshoring may also affect workers through reduced wages. A more comprehensive understanding of the full effects of offshoring on IT workers and the demand for particular skills could therefore be provided through analyses of job displacement and wage effects.

acknowledgments

We thank Peter Cappelli, Eric Clemons, Lori Rosenkopf, and three anonymous reviewers for their guidance and comments.

 

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Prasanna B. Tambe ( [e-mail]) is an assistant professor of information, operations, and management sciences in the stern school of business, new york university, new york.

Lorin M. hitt ( [e-mail]) is the class of 1942 Professor of operations and information Management in the wharton school, university of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.