IT vendor integration as catalyst of IT outsourcing success Navarro-Paule, Andrés J.; Romerosa-Martínez, M. Mercedes; Lloréns-Montes, Francisco Javier
The Journal of business & industrial marketing,
11/2023, Letnik:
38, Številka:
10
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Purpose
This paper aims to explain how small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs) create information technology (IT) business value through blended IT outsourcing (ITO). The explanatory framework it ...proposes enables SMEs to replicate IT capability outcomes (i.e. enhance their economic, strategic and technological competences, namely, ITO success) by endorsing an ITO strategy catalyzed by IT vendor integration.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses covariance-based structural equation modeling to test the proposed research model. Data are collected from 251 knowledge-intensive business SMEs located in Science and Technology Parks in Spain.
Findings
The results demonstrate empirically that SMEs can replicate IT capability benefits (i.e. enhance their non-IT competences) through blended ITO in which IT, conceptualized as a transversal supporting activity, is outsourced to an IT vendor while the value creation process remains with the buyer. The integration (i.e. process integration and information sharing) of an IT-proficient vendor catalyzes ITO success. More specifically, the results show that, although process integration is not directly related to competence enhancement, fosters information sharing, which directly facilitates ITO success. The results also show that IT vendor proficiency accounts for ex ante trust.
Practical implications
Managers should think of transformational ITO as a strategy to enhance firm competences. For blended ITO strategies to succeed, managers must have a comprehensive understanding of the business they run, as it is important to create conditions that foster inter-firm information sharing. To achieve these conditions, managers should take special care in selecting boundary spanners, who are the pivotal links in competence enhancement.
Originality/value
While most research focuses on ongoing trust (i.e. trust develops as ITO evolves), this study focuses on initial (i.e. ex ante) trust and analyzes IT vendor proficiency (expert, experienced and reputed) to examine trust as an antecedent of ITO. This study also draws on previous conceptualizations of vendor integration to develop and analyze a two-step integration model to explain how IT vendor integration (i.e. process integration and information sharing) catalyzes enhancement of the buyer’s non-IT competences. This study focuses on SMEs, which are often neglected in ITO studies.
•IT outsourcing (ITO) dynamic capabilities affect ITO success via IT reconfiguration.•ITO dynamic capabilities affect ITO success via IT service delivery.•ITO contract management capabilities affect ...ITO success via IT service delivery.•ITO relational capabilities affect ITO success via IT service delivery.
This study proposes and tests a model of information technology outsourcing (ITO) capabilities as antecedents of ITO success. Building on the dynamic capabilities perspective (DCP), the model posits that ITO sensing, ITO seizing, and ITO orchestrating capabilities will influence ITO success by way of both successful reconfiguration of IT solutions and successful delivery of IT services. Building on extant ITO research, the model also hypothesizes that contract management capabilities and relationship management capabilities will influence ITO success via the successful delivery of IT services. Data from a cross-sectional survey of 152 large U.S.-based organizations in various industries were analyzed with PLS. The results support the hypothesis that successful reconfiguration mediates the effect of dynamic capabilities on ITO success. They partially support the hypothesis of successful delivery as mediator of the effect of dynamic capabilities on ITO success. The hypothesis of successful delivery as a mediator of the effect of relationship management capabilities and contract management capabilities on ITO success is supported only for relationship management capabilities. The study offers a theoretical anchoring for the conceptualization of ITO capabilities, which complements the rich and context-specific case-based literature of ITO capabilities and extends current research by adding to existing explanations of how ITO success is achieved.
Dead ringers Nadeem, Shehzad
2011., 20110117, 2011, 2011-01-17, 20110101
eBook
In the Indian outsourcing industry, employees are expected to be "dead ringers" for the more expensive American workers they have replaced--complete with Westernized names, accents, habits, and ...lifestyles that are organized around a foreign culture in a distant time zone.Dead Ringerschronicles the rise of a workforce for whom mimicry is a job requirement and a passion. In the process, the book deftly explores the complications of hybrid lives and presents a vivid portrait of a workplace where globalization carries as many downsides as advantages.
Shehzad Nadeem writes that the relatively high wages in the outsourcing sector have empowered a class of cultural emulators. These young Indians indulge in American-style shopping binges at glittering malls, party at upscale nightclubs, and arrange romantic trysts at exurban cafés. But while the high-tech outsourcing industry is a matter of considerable pride for India, global corporations view the industry as a low-cost, often low-skill sector. Workers use the digital tools of the information economy not to complete technologically innovative tasks but to perform grunt work and rote customer service. Long hours and the graveyard shift lead to health problems and social estrangement. Surveillance is tight, management is overweening, and workers are caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment.
Through lively ethnographic detail and subtle analysis of interviews with workers, managers, and employers, Nadeem demonstrates the culturally transformative power of globalization and its effects on the lives of the individuals at its edges.
Outsourcing refers to the practice of a firm entrusting to an external entity the performance of an activity that was performed erstwhile in-house. Although off-shoring and offshore outsourcing to ...suppliers have dominated much of the recent discussion and debate on outsourcing in scholarly journals and the business press, the nature and scope of outsourcing that does not transcend national boundaries, and outsourcing to entities other than to suppliers is quite substantial. Against this backdrop, a five sources outsourcing framework delineating a broad array of outsourcing avenues available to firms is proposed. For the most part, lowering costs as a motive underlying off-shoring and offshore outsourcing have dominated recent discussion. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the rapid growth in offshore outsourcing in the services sector, the technological forces underlying these developments have been extensively written about. Against this backdrop, the relevance of considerations other than cost in the outsourcing decisions of firms, and the role of technology in automating and thereby either making redundant an erstwhile outsourced activity or performing the activity in-house are discussed.
Cloud computing paradigm provides an alternative and economical service for resource-constrained clients to perform large-scale data computation. Since large matrix determinant computation (DC) is ...ubiquitous in the fields of science and engineering, a first step is taken in this paper to design a protocol that enables clients to securely, verifiably, and efficiently outsource DC to a malicious cloud. The main idea to protect the privacy is employing some transformations on the original matrix to get an encrypted matrix which is sent to the cloud; and then transforming the result returned from the cloud to get the correct determinant of the original matrix. Afterwards, a randomized Monte Carlo verification algorithm with one-sided error is introduced, whose superiority in designing inexpensive result verification algorithm for secure outsourcing is well demonstrated. In addition, it is analytically shown that the proposed protocol simultaneously fulfills the goals of correctness, security, robust cheating resistance, and high-efficiency. Extensive theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation also show its high-efficiency and immediate practicability. It is hoped that the proposed protocol can shed light in designing other novel secure outsourcing protocols, and inspire powerful companies and working groups to finish the programming of the demanded all-inclusive scientific computations outsourcing software system. It is believed that such software system can be profitable by means of providing large-scale scientific computation services for so many potential clients.
An enormous amount of information has been produced about the IT outsourcing phenomenon over the last 20 years, but one has to look to the academic literature for consistent, objective, and reliable ...research approaches and analyses. Our review finds that, In practice, the academic literature on IT outsourcing has very much honored both rigor and relevance In the ways In which research has been conducted. Our central purpose In the review was to answer two research questions: What has the empirical academic literature found about information technology outsourcing (ITO) decisions and outcomes? What are the gaps In knowledge to consider In future ITO research? To answer these questions, we examined 164 empirical ITO articles published between 1992 and 2010 In 50 journals. Adapting a method used by Jeyaraj et al. (2006), we encapsulated this vast empirical literature on ITO In a way that was concise, meaningful, and helpful to researchers. We coded 36 dependent variables, 138 independent variables, and 741 relationships between Independent and dependent variables. By extracting the best evidence, we developed two models of outsourcing: one model addressed ITO decisions and one model addressed ITO outcomes. The model of ITO decisions includes Independent variables associated with motives to outsource, transaction attributes, client firm characteristics, and influence sources. The model of ITO outcomes includes Independent variables associated with client and supplier capabilities, relationship characteristics, contractual governance, decision characteristics, and transaction attributes. We also examined the interactions among broad categories of variables and the learning curve effects resulting from feedback loops. Overall, ITO researchers have a broad and deep understanding of ITO. However, the field continues to evolve as clients and suppliers on every inhabited continent participate actively in the global sourcing community. There is still much research yet to be done. We reviewed recent studies that have identified gaps in current knowledge and proposed future paths of research pertaining to strategic motivations, environmental influences, dynamic interactions, configurational and portfolio approaches, global destinations, emerging models, reference theory extension, and grounded theory development.
El objetivo de este artículo es aproximarnos a una mejor definición de la identidad docente más allá del discurso de las competencias. Partimos de la hipótesis de que todas las características del ...docente se ponen en juego en su ejercicio profesional. Nuestros análisis hermenéuticos han concluido que los discursos públicos desatienden el debate sobre el buen docente, y que esto ocurre en la medida en que adquieren más protagonismo los fines externos que los intrínsecos de la educación. Por ello, se proponen acciones que favorezcan la presencia de bienes para la adopción del perfil más personal de la identidad docente.
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