IT outsourcing intent in academic institutions in GCC countries

A novel integrated intuitionistic fuzzy decision aid for agile outsourcing provider selection: a COVID-19 pandemic-based scenario analysis

In project management, agility concept has emerged for overcoming the limitations of traditional methodologies that are sequential and linear. An agile project contains planned processes as well as iterations. In global competitive areas, achieving agility in outsourcing processes enables the companies to cope with changes and dynamic issues. This paper introduces an integrated cognitive map-based intuitionistic fuzzy multiple criteria decision aid to rank agile outsourcing provider alternatives and then determine the best performing one. Intuitionistic fuzzy sets are employed for dealing with uncertain and vague data along with the loss of information that may be occurred in numerical operations with fuzzy numbers. Intuitionistic fuzzy cognitive map tool is used to weight the evaluation criteria that are interrelated with each other with causal links. The most appropriate agile outsourcing provider alternative is identified via intuitionistic fuzzy complex proportional assessment technique, which aims to obtain a solution relative to the ideal solution. In order to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed intuitionistic fuzzy decision aid, a case study is conducted in Turkish white goods industry. As a comparative study, a scenario analysis is provided to understand the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on agile provider evaluation/selection decision. According to the results obtained from the scenario analysis, it is worth noting that home office procedures are appropriate for maintaining agility in outsourcing processes of project management.

Unraveling the impact of cultural distance on IT outsourcing success – insights from three major sourcing reconfigurations

Purpose

IT outsourcing (ITO) has developed into an established practice for organizations but the interorganizational and oftentimes international collaboration it involves comes at a price: Reports from academia and practice suggest that more than 25% of all ITO projects fail, many because of cultural differences between client and provider organizations. Against this background, this paper analyzes the complex nature of cultural distance and its multi-faceted effect on ITO success.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper builds upon extant literature on culture on the national, organizational and team level, conceptualizes its effect on relationship quality and ITO success, and hypothesizes a model on potential moderators and management techniques to offset culture-induced challenges. It then evaluates and refines the model by means of an interpretive qualitative research design for an in-depth single-case study of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE (P7S1), a leading European media company that reconfigured its IT sourcing model three times in 10 years.

Findings

The results from interviews with top managers from client and provider organizations represent one of the first integrated views on the critical importance of cultural compatibility on multiple levels, provide manifold examples for its complex effect on ITO success, as well as moderators and potential management techniques to promote ITO success.

Research limitations/implications

This paper contributes relevant empirical insights to the growing body of literature on culture and its underestimated role in ITO success. It builds on tentative theory that is confirmed and refined.

Practical implications

The paper helps in substantiating the complex and intangible nature of culture and demonstrates means for its effective management.

Originality/value

The results from interviews with top managers from client and provider organizations represent one of the first integrated views on the critical importance of cultural compatibility on multiple levels, provide manifold examples for its complex effect on ITO success, as well as moderators and potential management techniques to promote ITO success.

The influence of PRINCE2 standard on customer satisfaction in information technology outsourcing: an investigation of a mediated moderation model

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of PRINCE2 (PRoject IN Controlled Environments 2) standard on customer satisfaction jointly with vendor relationship management capability in the information technology outsourcing (ITO) context. This paper further tries to explore the above underlying mechanism by studying the mediating effect of deliverable quality.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper develops a mediated moderation model to explain the underlying influence processes of PRINCE2 standard, vendor relationship management capability and deliverable quality on ITO customer satisfaction. By conducting a pair-wise survey of 260 project managers in seven Iranian firms, the model and hypotheses are empirically tested with the partial least squares method.

Findings

Our results suggest that firms benefit more in terms of IT costs reduction when they have a higher level of complementary investment in an external standard, especially through an interplay effect of the external standard and internal relational aspect. Firms can make business processes more amenable to outsourcing and facilitate monitoring of vendor performance and effective coordination with vendors. More interestingly, we find that this interactive effect is fully mediated by deliverable quality, which, in turn, directly increases ITO customer satisfaction.

Originality/value

This study adds some new knowledge and provides new views to study ITO customer satisfaction by addressing the importance of PRINCE2 standard. This study further enhances our understanding in terms of the underlying pathway through which the PRINCE2 standard jointly affects customer satisfaction with vendor relationship management capability and deliverable quality. With the effort of explicitly explaining the complex mechanisms, this study helps ITO managers proactively escort outsourcing activities and projects.

A Systematic Literature Review on IT Outsourcing Decision and Future Research Directions

During the recent decades, some academic research on the subject of information technology outsourcing (ITO) decision has appeared in different outlets, which may impede the use of such resources and as a result, repetition of research by various researchers is very likely. The purpose of this paper is then to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) pertaining to research on ITO decision. Then, this review intends to 1) classify ITO decision literature, 2) provide a list of factors affecting ITO decision, and 3) identify ITO strategies. To this end, 91 ITO articles published between 2000 and 2018 in 51 unique journals were reviewed. The results yielded three kinds of descriptive, relational, and comparative ITO decision studies. The determinants of ITO decisions are classified into technological, organizational, environmental and user adoption factors. Furthermore, the trend of studied ITO strategies in the reviewed literature is analyzed, and future sourcing varietals are proposed. Finally, some insights and future research directions are proposed based on the review results.

Disentangling the driving factors of logistics outsourcing: a configurational perspective

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how external pressures, internal capability and transaction attributes of logistics outsourcing synergically influence the extent of asset-based and non-asset-based logistics outsourcing.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the data surveyed from 250 manufacturing companies in China, this study employed fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to deduce multiple configurations for logistics outsourcing decisions.

Findings

The results suggest that asset-based logistics outsourcing is primarily driven by external imitation pressures or internal demands for logistics technologies, while non-asset-based logistics outsourcing is mainly driven by the demands for external management-based logistics services. Asset specificity plays a positive role in promoting both asset-based and non-asset-based logistics outsourcing. The requirement for third-party logistics (3PL) management capability depends on the outsourcing types and outsourcing causes.

Practical implications

This study provides guidance to practitioners for them to make outsourcing decisions. It suggests that asset-based logistics outsourcing is more appropriate when there are high external imitation pressures or more internal logistics demands, while non-asset-based logistics outsourcing should be used only when a firm needs management-based logistics services. Besides, 3PL users are suggested to outsource their logistics when their 3PL providers are required to make specific investments. In addition, managers should carefully evaluate firms’ capabilities in managing outsourcing relationships.

Originality/value

Previous studies largely ignored the interaction effects of a set of factors on logistics outsourcing decisions, and to date, little research empirically examined how outsourcing is driven in terms of different types of outsourcing. Drawing on the institutional theory, dynamic capability view, and transaction cost theory and overarching under the complexity theory, this study examines how institutional, organizational and transactional factors interplay with each other to influence different types of logistics outsourcing (i.e. asset based and non-asset based). Methodologically, the configural analysis (i.e. fsQCA) is applied to explore complex causal configurations that drive logistics outsourcing.

How vendor capabilities impact IT outsourcing performance

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying mechanisms through which integration capability and learning capability influence IT outsourcing performance from vendor’s perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper develops a moderated mediation model to explain the underlying influence processes of integration capability and learning capability on vendor’s performance. A sample of 237 vendor firms was obtained from China through two separated surveys. The hypotheses were tested with the partial least squares method and bias-corrected bootstrapping method.

Findings

The empirical results indicate that external integration capability (EIC) mediates the effect of internal integration capability (IIC) on vendor outsourcing performance, and the relationship between EIC and vendor performance is positively moderated by learning capability, while learning capability has a negative moderating effect on the link between IIC and vendor performance. Further, the conditional indirect effect is suggested. The indirect effect of IIC on vendor performance through EIC becomes non-significant when learning capability is low.

Originality/value

This study highlights the counterintuitive notion that learning capability may not always have uniformly positive effects and figure out the mechanism through which integration capability and learning capability can effectively improve IT outsourcing performance.