Competing Institutional Logics in Impact Sourcing

This chapter examines competing welfare and market logics in impact sourcing. Impact sourcing is an emerging trend in the global outsourcing industry that aims to contribute to the welfare of marginalised people by providing employment opportunities in outsourcing centres. Drawing on the concepts of institutional logics this paper presents a case study of a USA based IT outsourcing vendor “AlphaCorp” practising impact sourcing in a Pakistan subsidiary. The findings show that in cases where actors are located in diverse institutional contexts, competing interests determine the respective priority given to the welfare and market logics. Multiple responses to the competing logics are identified and we offer a conceptualisation of “enclaves” of competing institutional logics in impact sourcing.