Intercultural Communication In Outsourced: A Film Analysis
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Intercultural Communication in Outsourced: A Film Analysis
By Sonny Nguyen
Student number: 2548985
Email: h.m.s.nguyen@student.vu.nl
Date of submission: 29 september 2014
Outsourced is a modern comedy romance that addresses the intercultural conflicts that can arise when U.S. and Indian cultures clash. The story focuses on the cultural differences that a U.S. –based manager experiences when he has to work in India when his department is outsourced.
The story explore the issue of cultural language, history, and identity. Outsourced begins with the call center manager Todd Anderson who is faced with losing his management position within a U.S. call center. He is offered an opportunity to travel to India to train his replacement, Puru, if he wants to keep his stock options. As his journey advances he experiences cultural differences between the U.S. and Indian culture causing communication problems. While Todd is still in a cultural shock, he needs to cut the MPI (Minutes per incident) in half or Todd will not be able to return to the USA. In order to that he opts to educate his team, consisting of Indian employees, to learn more about the USA culture. Asha, who is a call center worker, tells him that Todd must also learn more about Indian culture to help them succeed. One day Todd meets another call center trainer at the “MacDonnell’s” who tells him he should stop resisting India. Todd returns and experiences the festival of Holi which gives him a sense of enchantment.