Outsourcing as a Fad - The Rational Agent versus Structural Imposition

Over recent years there has been a worldwide trend towards smaller government government departments being under increased pressure to privatise or outsource parts of their operation and to move towards a more independent corporatised model. The corporatised model is seen to involve the organisation moving away from being a direct arm of the government, acting more as a business entity in their own right. In many cases this operation has been preceded by an examination of business processes and subsequent reengineering. This paper examines the change process and presents some of the issues faced by the IT Department of a local governmental organisation as it moves through this difficult and complex process. The paper suggests that consideration of both internal and external social structures needs to play an important part in the examination of the change process.