An entrepreneurial approach to human resource management in the public sector: Perspectives from Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand

Outsourcing, or offshoring, is part of the neoliberal agenda for the public sector (Burgess and MacDonald 1999). It refers to the act of delegating or transferring some or all of the decision-making rights, business processes, internal activities, and services of an organization to an external provider that then develops, manages, and administers these activities in conformity with agreed-upon deliverables, performance standards, and outputs set out in a contract (Bensghir and Tekneci 2008). For this reason, the essence of outsourcing is captured in the contractual agreements that transfer the responsibility of delivering public services from the public sector as a principal or purchaser to the private sector as an agent or provider. The provider, for a negotiated price, delivers designated services that meet predetermined levels and performance criteria set by the purchaser. A large number of studies attempt to identify the drivers of outsourcing from both theoretical and practical perspectives through case studies and surveys. The core factors that motivate organizations in all industries to outsource can be chiefly categorized as economic, strategic, and environmental (Lau and Zhang 2006). In economic terms, outsourcing aligns with traditional private sector objectives such as more intense competition, enhanced productivity, lower operating costs, and accelerated business process reengineering. Copyright © 2015 Stavros Sindakis and Christian Walter.