An Exploratory Study of Human Resource Outsourcing in Dutch Organizations

An exploratory study of human resource outsourcing in Dutch organizations

Master Thesis Proposal

Table of contents

Abstract 3

Introduction 4

Outsourcing in general 4

Human Resource outsourcing 5

Trends in HR outsourcing 7

Problem statement 8

Conceptual model 9

Methodology 10

Data collection 10

Proposed data analysis 12

Project planning 13

References 14

Abstract

Competitive forces can drive organizations to outsource some or all of their activities. Nowadays almost every activity within an organization can be outsourced (Belcourt, 2006). The last decade is the trend toward outsourcing human resource (HR) activities growing (Lever, 2002). In contrast to much literature on outsourcing of business processes generally, little academic research exists on HR outsourcing (Cooke et al., 2005). HR outsourcing can be defined as placing responsibility for various elements of the HR function with a third-party provider (Turnbull, 2002, in: Cooke et al., 2005). For my master thesis I will do an exploratory study of what HR activities Dutch organizations outsource, why and how they outsource these activities. This proposal starts with a theory review considering the research question. In the next chapters the problem statement and the conceptual model are given. After that you will find an explanation of the research methodology and finally an overview of the planning is given.

Introduction

Outsourcing can be defined as a long-term contractual relationship for business services from an external provider (Lever, 2002). Work that is traditionally done internally is shifted to an external provider and the employees of the original organization are often transferred to the external provider (Belcourt, 2006). Most organizations in all different sizes have always outsourced some functions, such as catering or cleaning. Outsourcing is not something new, but the difference nowadays is the scale of outsourcing. Almost every activity within the organization can be outsourced, from IT to human resources (Belcourt, 2006). Competitive forces can drive organizations to outsource