Mass Attitudes Toward Offshore Outsourcing

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A Review of US Versus Them: Mass Attitudes Toward Offshore Outsourcing Mansfield and Mutz are looking at the public’s perceptions of offshoring “whether the production process is entirely domestic or includes foreign components,” and outsourcing i.e. “whether or not the production proves takes place entirely within a given firm” (Mansfield and Mutz 2013). However, despite having different meanings, outsourcing and offshoring are used interchangeably in the study. When trying to find public opinion, they break down the public into three categories, that of economists, the staunch advocates of outsourcing, the mass public, the staunch advocates against outsourcing, and policymakers, the balancing act between the two voices. The study focuses …show more content…

Self-interest is tied to the perceived effect of outsourcing on self. They find this hard to interpret however because it is hypothesized that this is the rationalization of information, meaning that access to information has an impact on someone’s self-interest. However, it is important to note that there was a substantial lack of understanding and consistency on both people’s views of what outsourcing is, and how it impacts them. Therefore, self-interest is an unreliable measure of people’s attitudes towards …show more content…

Mansfield and Mutz conclude that there is a somewhat significant impact on people’s opinions of outsourcing. For instance, when someone understands an economists’ arguments for outsourcing, they will be more inclined to accept outsourcing as an overall good thing. Also, education level and understanding of economics have an impact on people’s views of whether outsourcing is right, generally perceiving outsourcing as a good thing in the aggregate.
Evidence for there being an impact on perceptions stems from mostly education. Someone’s exposure to economic education tends to increase someone’s tendency to view outsourcing as a positive, while the lack thereof pushes their opinion in a negative direction. Additionally, Mansfield and Mutz found that there was no impact from taking just a single economics course, but there was one from a better understanding of economics through further