不对称信息下信息技术服务外包合同设计

本文针对客户企业向IT供应商外包信息技术服务这一背景,考虑IT供应商不仅具有开发信息系统能力的私有信息,且其开发过程中的努力行为对于客户企业不可见的情况,研究了客户企业信息技术服务外包合同设计问题。研究发现,不对称信息下,客户企业可以通过设计最优合同菜单来甄别不同能力的IT供应商,但是此时客户企业需要向高能力IT供应商支付信息租金。同时,客户企业可以通过设计最优合同有效规制高能力IT供应商系统开发过程中的努力行为,但是相比于信息对称的情况,不对称信息下低能力IT供应商会存在努力不足的现象。低能力IT供应商努力不足的现象会降低社会福利和客户企业的期望利润;客户企业向高能力IT供应商支付信息租金的行为也会减少客户企业的期望利润。增加系统调试阶段的调试时间或者选择信息系统故障检出率高的IT供应商,可以降低高能力IT供应商的信息租金,并缓解低能力IT供应商努力不足的现象,进而减少信息不对称给客户企业带来的利润损失。     

Strategic Maneuvers for Outsourcing Flexibility: An Empirical Assessment

Tan and Sia (2006) conceptualize outsourcing flexibility within a set of four dimensions: robustness, modifiability, new capability, and ease of exit, and propose a portfolio of preemptive, protective, exploitive, and corrective maneuvers to manage flexibility in outsourcing. In this article, we build upon their proposed framework by anchoring the strategic maneuvers through a multitheoretic lens and empirically validate the research propositions. A survey of 171 outsourcing projects in Singapore was conducted. The findings bear evidence that the four proposed dimensions of outsourcing flexibility are conceptually distinct and that different strategic maneuvers contribute differently to the various flexibility dimensions. The empirical findings also affirm the importance of structuring flexibility for outsourcing success, with some flexibility dimensions manifesting different intensity in enabling outsourcing success for IT outsourcing versus business process outsourcing. We conclude by proposing a more holistic approach for effective flexibility management in outsourcing and highlighting research gaps that may need deeper theorizing and empirical extension.     

The need to improve communication about scope changes: frustration as an indicator of operational inefficiencies

Early and timely sharing of information can provide a sustainable competitive advantage. However, even if lean information management aims to improve this information flow, it has mainly been investigated in ‘operations-based’ companies. This paper fills this gap, drawing upon the experience of the authors working within a large project-based company engaged in the ‘engineer and manufacture to order’ of a complex piece of equipment costing millions of dollars, for its strategic long-term client, both working in the same industrial field, i.e. nuclear decommissioning. This research investigates the information flow regarding scope changes between the project-based company and the long-term client adapting and applying a five-step framework to highlight operational inefficiencies, reduce the corresponding transaction costs and increase the overall company’s competitiveness. This is exemplified through a particular case, but can be applied to other project-based companies dealing with strategic clients involved in long-term relationships.     

The influence of organizational identification on organizational knowledge management (KM)

Information technology (IT) outsourcing vendor organizations contain isolated business units whose creation and sustenance greatly facilitate business operations. But they also introduce important challenges for organizational knowledge management (KM). In this paper, based on 7 months of intensive field-work at India Inc., a leading Indian IT firm, we looked at how members’ identification with two organizations, their own and their client organization, influences their compliance with an organizational KM initiative. The findings show that members have difficulties in complying with the expectations of the organizational KM initiative owing to a stronger identification with their client organizations. At the same time, they comply readily with KM initiatives at the business unit level. The findings show that KM managers at India Inc. use the help of middle level managers in the business units in their efforts to improve members’ compliance with organizational KM. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study are discussed.     

Opportunity and opportunism: The expatriation practices of Indian information technology multinational corporations

Although effective International Human Resource Management during an international assignment constitutes a significant factor in ensuring success of an expatriate assignment, there has not been much research that studies the expatriation practices associated with the global delivery model that has come to be identified with global outsourcing. The purpose of this paper is to understand the expatriation practices of Emerging Market Multinational Corporations (EMNCs) in the Indian IT sector, by examining the experiences of Indian IT workers sent to work on international client projects in a western country. We have used qualitative semi-structured interviews with 47 Indian IT expatriates from Indian IT MNCs working at client sites in Australia. We find that there is inadequate attention paid to expatriation both prior to emigration and while workers are overseas and employed at client sites. Such human resource shortcomings may be inherent in the global delivery model that is an important feature of Indian IT business. The implications of these findings are discussed in the paper.     

The Role of Contracts on Quality and Returns to Quality in Offshore Software Development Outsourcing

In this study, we examine how the different incentive structures inherent in two primary contract types—time and materials (T&M) and fixed price (FP)—influence the quality provided by the vendor in the software development outsourcing industry. We argue that the incentive structure of FP contracts motivates a vendor to be more efficient in the software development process, which results in higher quality as compared to projects executed under a T&M contract. We thus argue that vendors consistently staff FP projects with better trained personnel because they face the most risk on these contracts, resulting in better outcomes on these projects. We extend our analysis to propose that providing higher quality is associated with higher profit margins for the vendor only for FP contracts. We develop and test these hypotheses on data collected from 100 software projects completed by a leading Indian offshore vendor. The results provide strong support for our fundamental thesis that the drivers of and returns to quality vary by contract type. We discuss the implications of our research for both researchers and practitioners.     

IT外包关系质量研究

建立高效率的关系,对于企业IT外包活动的成功有着重要的影响。营销学中的关系质量概念对于有效衡量IT外包关系以及关系的绩效,起了很强的推动作用。在文献梳理的基础上,通过结合当前研究的最新趋势,对IT外包中的关系质量研究现状做一述评,并在此基础上提出有关管理实践和研究的建议。     

R&D (Re)location and Offshore Outsourcing: A Management Perspective

The paper reviews and systematizes the management literature directly and indirectly related to (re)location of research and development (R&D), in the form of both insourcing and outsourcing. The focus in particular is on R&D offshore outsourcing and its main drivers, including locational constraints and opportunities, motives, strategic decisions and managerial challenges. The analysis synthesizes and links the main propositions and findings of the theoretical and empirical work to build an original management and strategy centred framework which looks at R&D (re)location from a client–vendor perspective. In this case, the client is the offshoring company, and the vendors are the firms located in the host country. The characteristics of the firms and locations considered vis‐à‐vis the offshoring firm's goals are examined, the strategies implemented, the management and organizational challenges that R&D offshore outsourcing entails, and the ways in which offshoring impacts on both home and host locations are investigated.     

How Provider Selection and Management Contribute to Successful Innovation Outsourcing: An Empirical Study at Siemens

It is becoming increasingly common to involve external technology providers in developing new technologies and new products. Two important phases involved in working with technology vendors are vendor selection and vendor management. Because for both steps theory development of key decision guidelines is still immature, we use detailed case studies of 31 innovation outsourcing projects at Siemens to develop grounded theory on provider selection criteria and on project management success drivers. A selection criterion often associated with successful outsourcing is the provider's “track record” or previous experience. Our cases suggest that there is no standard “track record” for success but that a “match” between the client firm's outsourcing motivation and the provider's strengths appears to be a necessary condition for a successful outsourcing collaboration. As to the second phase—managing the vendor—we identify a number of operational project success drivers. There seems to be no universal checklist, but the most important drivers seem to be contingent on the type of vendor chosen and on the maturity of the technology. We compare five provider types—universities, competitors, customers, start‐up companies, and component suppliers—and find that some success drivers are common to all providers, while others are relevant only for certain types of provider. Moreover, drivers in the case of a mature technology are more focused on successful transfer to manufacturing than on development itself. Our findings offer guidelines for innovation managers on how to select innovation providers and how to manage them during the project.     

Information systems outsourcing projects as a double moral hazard problem

In the past two decades many organizations have turned to other organizations to satisfy their information systems needs. Information systems outsourcing arrangements cover the spectrum from agreements involving the delivery of all information services to those providing specific services such as systems development, communications management, desktop computing provision and maintenance, and so on.In this paper we model information systems outsourcing arrangements as a non-cooperative game with two players: a company and an outsourcing vendor. The game between the two players has an inherent double moral hazard problem as the success of the information system outsourcing project depends on the actions of both players, which are costly for them and are not directly contractible. Both parties make their decisions taking into account the effects that these decisions have on the other player's actions. In our analysis, we compare the solution obtained without a moral hazard problem (the first-best solution) to the one obtained under a double moral hazard setting (the second-best solution). We demonstrate some results based on the assumption that increases in the productivity of the vendor lead to increases in the productivity of the company. Further we establish that outsourcing contracts should provide no separate payment for failure to the outsourcing vendor although effectively many of them do. We also provide a sharing rule for providing appropriate incentives for the vendor and examine the dynamics associated with this sharing rule. Finally, we further provide for the characterization of response functions and the ensuing Nash solution including the optimal outsourcing fee. This allows for the nuanced consideration of the degree of interaction between the effort of one party and the productivity of the effort of the other party. This particular interaction has not been explored formally in the extant research literature.     

基于企业属性的IT价值多维度研究

目前,业界对于IT为企业所带来的战略价值持有两种观点,一种观点认为,IT已经成为基础设施,是企业的一种纯技术工具,将不再为企业带来竞争优势,企业对于IT只需进行风险管理；另一种观点则认为IT仍然具有战略价值,对于提升企业竞争力仍具有推动作用。本文从组织管理的角度审视IT价值,结合企业特定的内部条件和外部环境探讨了IT带给企业的差异性,从行业、规模、组织结构、管理流程以及企业文化五个企业属性维度分析了IT对企业具有的不同战略价值,认为IT仍然是企业未来发展和提升竞争力的核心动力之一。     

A Path to Successful IT Outsourcing: Interaction Between Service‐Level Agreements and Commitment

Although service‐level agreements (SLAs) are important for IT outsourcing management, appropriate mechanisms for constructing effective SLAs are still poorly understood, leading to inadequate or overcomplicated contracts that are ineffective. This study examines the associations among three distinct sets of SLA characteristics and outsourcing success, as well as the role of commitment in these relationships. Analyzing survey data based on a model theorizing the alignment of SLA characteristics with intended outsourcing objectives, we find that different types of benefits attained through IT outsourcing arrangements are associated with the use of specific contractual dimensions. We also find that commitment, in general, moderates the impact of SLAs on outsourcing success, although the nature of the moderation varies with the different benefits IT outsourcing engagement is intended to achieve. Interestingly, in certain cases—change characteristics for achieving technology benefits, in particular—commitment can be a barrier to the effective use of SLAs in achieving intended outsourcing benefits. As such, our study extends the literature on IT outsourcing, contracting and commitment, as well as provides a general guideline for practitioners to structure effective SLAs and to properly use commitment for managing IT outsourcing engagements to successfully achieve intended benefits.     

Capability,Quality, and Performance of Offshore IS Vendors: A Theoretical Framework and Empirical Investigation

Information systems (IS) offshoring has become a widespread practice and a strategic sourcing choice for many firms. While much has been written by researchers about the factors that lead to successful offshoring arrangements from the client's viewpoint, the vendor's perspective has been largely scarce. The vendor perspective is equally important as offshore IS vendors need to make important decisions in terms of delivering operational and strategic performance and aligning their resources and processes in order to meet or exceed targeted outcomes. In this article, we propose and test a three‐level capability–quality–performance (CQP) theoretical framework to understand vendor outcomes and their antecedents. The first level of the framework represents three vendor capabilities: relationship management, contract management, and information technology management. The second level has three mediating variables representing process quality: partnership, service, and deliverable quality. The third level has three dependent variables representing vendor outcomes: operational performance, strategic performance, and satisfaction. The model was tested with 188 vendor firms from India and China, the two most popular destinations for IS offshoring. Results support the CQP framework; vendor capabilities are significant predictors of intermediate quality measures, which in turn affect vendor outcomes. Implications of the study findings to both theory development and IS offshore vendor strategic decision making are discussed.     

IT服务外包项目工期与费用控制的 多属性英氏逆拍卖机制

工期和费用是影响IT服务外包项目成败的两个重要因素,且两者之间呈负相关的关系。在IT服务外包项目执行前,发包方与接包方需要就项目的工期和费用达成一致。通常,发包方并不完全了解外包项目的市场行情,在这种情况下,就需要一种有效的方式使发包方和接包方之间就工期和费用达成一致。本文设计了改进的英氏逆拍卖机制,针对一对多的情况设计了新的拍卖协议;针对工期和费用的多属性情况,引入多属性效用理论解决,设计了相应的效用增加函数。最后通过一个算例来演示所设计的拍卖机制对解决此类决策问题的作用。得出一些结论:所设计机制能够以拍卖方式描述费用和工期管理流程;找到了发包方和接包方的最佳增量效用,并且建议的拍卖协议是发包方和接包方获得双赢结果的机制;从不同大小的案例中可以得到完全一致的结果,这表明设计的拍卖机制的有效性和效用增加函数对协商结果的有效性。     

An application of the AHP in vendor selection of a telecommunications system

Vendor selection of a telecommunications system is an important problem to a telecommunications company as the telecommunications system is a long-term investment for the company and the success of telecommunications services is directly affected by the vendor selection decision. Furthermore, the vendor selection of a telecommunications system is a complex multi-person, multi-criteria decision problem. The group decision-making process can be improved by a systematic and logical approach to assess priorities based on the inputs of several people from different functional areas within the company. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) can be very useful in involving several decision-makers with different conflicting objectives to arrive at a consensus decision. In this paper, an AHP-based model is formulated and applied to a real case study to examine its feasibility in selecting a vendor for a telecommunications system. The use of the proposed model indicates that it can be applied to improve the group decision making in selecting a vendor that satisfies customer specifications. Also, it is found that the decision process is systematic and that using the proposed AHP model can reduce the time taken to select a vendor.     

关系契约治理与外包合作绩效——对日离岸软件外包项目的实证研究

对日离岸软件外包项目具有典型的关系契约特性,现有文献对软件外包中的关系契约治理及对合作绩效的影响还缺乏系统的理论分析和实证研究。信任、交流和相互适应调整作为重要的关系规范,在对日软件外包关系契约治理中具有重要意义。本研究根据访谈和110个项目的数据实证检验了关系规范对离岸软件外包项目绩效的影响。通过结构方程模型方法发现,交流的有效性对于项目质量和供应商成本控制绩效有积极影响,相互适应调整对于成本控制绩效也有积极影响。这个发现有助于构建有效的关系契约治理机制,促进软件外包产业发展。     

Performance management of suppliers in outsourcing project: case analysis from the financial services industry

This study investigates the characteristics of an effective performance management framework for outsourcing projects in a UK-based financial services organisation and how this may contribute to the success of the outsourcing arrangement. The analysis draws on outsourcing and performance management theory, and uses both primary and secondary data. Valuable information was found on objective setting, performance measurement and performance improvement in the outsourcing project. An adapted version of the Balanced Scorecard, termed a Logic Scorecard, is suggested as a measurement tool; a service credit system and a continuous improvement schedule used to enhance supplier performance. The performance management framework, which is one of the pillars of the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model, was developed, and provides practitioners with step-by-step guidance for the implementation of performance management in outsourcing projects. This combines both suggestions for performance management before and after the outsourcing decision, thus considering the entire outsourcing lifecycle. The proposed 10-step framework for outsourcing not only incorporates strategic propositions but also shows its implementation at an operational level.     

Zur Rolle versunkener Kosten in aufeinander folgenden IT-Outsourcing-Entscheidungen

Despite the ongoing theoretical and practical investigations of IT outsourcing, there are still a large number of projects that are unsuccessful or even fail all along the line. Studies in the decision-making literature indicate that psychological effects in the evaluation of decision-relevant facts may be one relevant reason for unsuccessful decisions. By conducting a quantitative empirical study with German IT decision makers, we investigate the influence of non-rational factors within consecutive IT outsourcing decisions. We show that beside the rational economic factors (transaction, production and the rational part of switching costs) also non-rational switching costs in terms of sunk cost do significantly contribute to the explanation of consecutive IT outsourcing decisions. Furthermore, we examine moderating effects that affect the non-rational behavior of IT decision makers. Besides the theoretical contribution to analyze the effects of sunk cost on both an individual and organizational level, we also derive practical implications. In consecutive IT outsourcing decisions, the non-rational behavior triggered by sunk cost can for example be reduced by replacing the decision maker or consult a decision team when sunk cost play a considerable role.     

Organizing for strategic management— A conceptual model

Managing the strategic problems is a complex process. In order to organize this process efficiently in one's own company it is necessary to understand and be able to communicate the basic factors involved. In the author's view there is a need to compile into a model concepts, relations and organizational principles of major importance to successful strategic planning. This article is based on the author's analysis of current literature and his own practical experience in Scandinavia. The article presents a conceptual model for strategic management including the planning process as well as the execution of strategic decisions. This model is related to basic organizational principles and the methodology used in project management.