What Makes Companies Backsource IT Services? Exploring the Influence of Decision Makers’ Preferences
Abstract
This paper presents a research model to explore factors which influence a company’s re-evaluation of its initial outsourcing decision. Thus, it aims to extend the research area of information technology (IT) backsourcing by creating further insights into antecedents for backsourcing decisions and implications for IT governance. The research is relevant because IT sourcing arrangements are increasingly changing towards selective sourcing and multi-sourcing approaches with more but smaller contracts. Companies will therefore have to re-evaluate their IT strategy and sourcing decisions more frequently. The proposed model examines the effect of service quality, relationship quality, and switching costs. Further, this paper extends existing research and introduces decision makers’ sourcing preferences as a not yet examined moderator. This allows to incorporate the influence from beliefs of decision makers on the decision process. The paper further provides a perspective on the subsequent steps to pursue the presented research approach.
Recommended Citation
Von Bary, Benedikt, "What Makes Companies Backsource IT Services? Exploring the Influence of Decision Makers’ Preferences" (2019). AMCIS 2019 Proceedings. 18.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2019/strategic_uses_it/strategic_uses_it/18
What Makes Companies Backsource IT Services? Exploring the Influence of Decision Makers’ Preferences
This paper presents a research model to explore factors which influence a company’s re-evaluation of its initial outsourcing decision. Thus, it aims to extend the research area of information technology (IT) backsourcing by creating further insights into antecedents for backsourcing decisions and implications for IT governance. The research is relevant because IT sourcing arrangements are increasingly changing towards selective sourcing and multi-sourcing approaches with more but smaller contracts. Companies will therefore have to re-evaluate their IT strategy and sourcing decisions more frequently. The proposed model examines the effect of service quality, relationship quality, and switching costs. Further, this paper extends existing research and introduces decision makers’ sourcing preferences as a not yet examined moderator. This allows to incorporate the influence from beliefs of decision makers on the decision process. The paper further provides a perspective on the subsequent steps to pursue the presented research approach.