Examining how organizational continuities and discontinuities affect the job satisfaction of global contractors

Global offshoring has become a key strategy for international staffing, especially in the software industry. Global software teams engage in boundary spanning activities that may help MNEs achieve international connectivity and cope with external disruptions through their use of virtual work. However, offshoring IT professionals who bridge these boundaries in offshoring MNEs must contend with discontinuities, or perceived disruptions in expected communication flows, which impact their job satisfaction. Drawing on survey data from 193 professional consultants from an IT services offshoring MNE located primarily in Eastern Europe and working for a U.S. client, we test a model grounded in Organizational Discontinuity Theory. We find that potential discontinuities arising from the virtual work environment have no impact on the job satisfaction of offshoring IT professionals, but that those who experience team-level continuities of identification and shared vision are more satisfied with their jobs. Our findings suggest that virtual work may have become normalized such that it is not problematic in and of itself, and that fostering connectivity in boundary spanning global teams may be beneficial for MNEs. Our findings have important implications for MNEs managing disruptions created by global work arrangements as well as exogenous disruptions.