Abstract

Despite the progress scholars have made on the relationship between IT outsourcing (ITO) and industry environment, our knowledge of this link is still ambiguous and limited. Drawing on recent research on the evolvement of ITO market, we extend our understanding by taking a dynamic view of this issue. Specifically, we focus on software development outsourcing (SDO) and three key elements of industry environment, namely resource munificence, industry concentration and technology change. We argue that the evolvement of ITO market has a moderating effect onthe relationship between SDO propensity and industry environment. Using industry-level data for U.S. private industries from 1998 to 2015, we find that industry environment’s impact on SDO propensity does change with the evolvement of the ITO market. Our findings provide insights on the relationship between SDO propensity and industry environment andindicate the importance of a dynamic view for understanding ITO-related phenomena.

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