Rise and Fall of an Information Technology Outsourcing Program: a qualitative Analysis of a Troubled Corporate Initiative

Employees who “never saw it coming.” 
Employees were generally uneasy over the 
email invitation from Richard on Friday afternoon and walking into the town hall meeting 
Monday morning. Like awkward and self-conscious teenagers filing in for an assembly in the 
gym, the apprehensive employees were unsure of what the “principal” was going to ask them to 
sit through: 
We get in there, and [Richard] is an introvert anyway. [Richard] looks a little nervous, 
but that’s normal. Everybody’s looking around trying to see who’s there and looking 
around to see who’s part of the announcement, and who’s hearing it and it’s interesting . . 
. I got the idea afterwards there were people that maybe you thought they knew or maybe 
they would have known [more information in advance] . . . [however] they might not 
have been in the loop. Maybe they were supposed to be. That’s some interesting stuff. 
(Employee, personal communication, December 14, 2012) 
Another employee recalled the initial lack of clarity in Richard’s messages. The extent to which 
these employees absorbed the news of SSP was clearly different from those employees who 
received the news informally: 
It was literally, from my perspective, it was like twenty minutes into the meeting and I 
saw what appeared from my judgment to be a lot of confusion. Like, “What is [Richard] 
saying? What does this mean?” I don’t think it was until [Richard] made the comparison 

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to or [Richard] asked, “A question you might have is how is, ‘How is this any different 
from [executives’ exemplar firm with the failed outsourcing program]?’” My observation 
was light bulbs went off then like, “Oh, my gosh. We’re talking about outsourcing?” 
(Employee, personal communication, November 7, 2012) 
Some of the employees with advanced notice were not surprised, but were obliged to act 
surprised in the town hall; other employees were genuinely surprised because their managers 
were not as “good” about doling out favors. Those employees who witnessed the town hall 
performance for the first time had difficulty making sense of what Richard was telling them. The 
message received by these employees was unequal to what the other group of employees 
received with their brief backstage privileges.
The employees who learned the news from Richard’s front stage town hall performance 
described feeling “stunned” and “shocked.” “It was stunned silence. There were questions, but it 
was really quiet and it was stunned for most people” (Employee, personal communication, 
December 14, 2012). Another employee shared, “I think it took me about two days to get over 
the shock. I was like, ‘all right, it is what it is, I got a job to do so I’m just going to keep doing 
that till they throw the boxes and say you’re moving’” (Employee, personal communication, 
January 8, 2013). Yet another described feeling insulted by executives who asked the employees 
to perform “business as usual” over the coming months: 
When we first heard it and everybody’s going, “How does this affect me? How does it 
affect my project?” [Executives] kept saying, “It’s business as usual.” That phrase . . . it 
doesn’t apply anymore. Your life is going to be different . . . At least to engineers, to say, 
“It’s business as usual and that your project deadlines are going to hold and you’ll most 
likely be the person executing on that blah, blah, blah.” It’s not business as usual. Your 

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head isn’t in the same spot. It’s a little bit insulting just because . . . It’s almost like 
they’re saying, “Just do what you were doing. You’re on an assembly line [in a software 
factory] and keep doing that.” Even though you do need to keep doing that, there are 
discussions to be had, “What happens if the [vendor] is coming in mid-project?” 
Basically, they’re saying, “Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about all those things.” 
(Employee, personal communication, December 14, 2012) 
For executives who followed the secrecy code, their employees were devastated by the news.
The statusing and transparency norms of the Icarus habitus created de facto expectations among 
employees that they would learn of this type of personal impact in a more private setting. At a 
high-stakes moment when these employees had several questions about the announcement and 
its impact to them, the large-group nature of the town hall inhibited employees from asking 
questions. These employees immediately focused and speculated on the personal impact SSP 
would have on them. Other interviewees shared the need to “update my resume” and “start 
looking for a new job,” although very few of these employees actually left Icarus after first 
hearing the announcement in mid-2012. 
Recall the manager in the previous section who received the advance information about 
SSP from their senior manager, who was on the Working Team. As a result of that informal 
conversation, that manager described their ability to support their team immediately after the 
town hall announcement. A different manager, who did not receive advance backstage 
information, described their experience of hearing the information formally and at the same time 
as the rank and file employees: 
It was a little bit jarring and a little bit shocking, especially for my team because typically 
when things like that are announced, my team gets nervous. They expect that I would 

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have heard about it ahead of time so that I have all the answers for them. Usually how it 
goes is, “Yes, I heard about this last week. Here’s all the answers to your questions.” This 
time, everybody kind of freaked out. They’re coming to me for questions, and I’m like, 
“You know what guys? I’m hearing about this same time you are,” which really left the 
team feeling really unsettled, like, “Wow, they didn’t even tell my manager before this 
happened.” They got a little bit worked up by that, and that’s feedback I gave [the 
Working Team] and the others within the SSP. It was like, “Hey, I get it, you couldn’t let 
it out early, but for the people managing resources I think a little bit of heads up [or] 
having those Q&A [question and answer] or [a] forum that had questions and answers 
ahead of time would have been helpful.” I think initially a few team members . . . well . . 
. I think all of them were pretty shocked by it. It’s kind of like, “What does this mean for 
me? Am I losing my job? What’s going on?” (Employee, personal communication, 
November 30, 2012). 
Richard, Donald, and other Icarus executives had over a year to debate, decide, and acclimate to 
the capacity problem and Supply Chain’s purported “non-differentiation” as rational reasons for 
SSP. Employees who did not receive advance notice heard about SSP and the impacts to their 
jobs, very abruptly, and for the first time in the town hall meeting. In some cases, managers and 
employees learned of SSP together. As the manager described above, employees expected a 
degree of information asymmetry with their mangers, and it reassured them they could go to their 
managers with questions. Culturally, they expected that their managers would have received the 
communication plan with frequently asked questions in advance. They also desired to have 
smaller group or informal conversations with their managers. These employees wanted a safer 
environment to express concerns they were not comfortable sharing publicly in the town hall—

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they wanted their own backstage access. Instances where managers and their employees learned 
about SSP for the first time together were viewed as highly disruptive and a deviation from their 
cultural expectations. 
Despite the majority of employees’ initial reactions, many begin to generally support SSP 
throughout the latter half of 2012 as executives shared further “evidence” of the capacity 
problem discussed in Chapter Six. Nevertheless, Richard’s ritualized and highly scripted 
performance of the initial town hall meeting was ineffective compared to the backstage ritual 
enacted by Working Team members and the small number of executives who chose to deviate 
from the prescribed SSP communication plan. Based on the experiences described by many 
employees, the town hall ritual was an ineffective and poor performance.