Sarbanes-Oxley Act and acquisition trends: Information technology managers' perceptions of the impact on information technology outsourcing

This research study provides a platform for extending the body of knowledge associated with the sourcing of Information Technology (IT) in the legal environment determined by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This analysis of IT sourcing was conducted via consideration of legal and situational factors which may influence an IT manager's decision to recommend outsourcing for the IT function under consideration. Specifically, this research validated a proposed conceptual model and tested the hypotheses which were used to evaluate if there were statistically significant relationships between an IT manager's decision to recommend a sourcing strategy for an IT function and his/her perceptions of the three characteristics of the Act -- namely, its enforcement, its penalty, and the clarity in its compliance guidance --, of peers' IT sourcing policy, and of the compliance role of the IT function under sourcing consideration. Through testing-using the chi-square test of independence-, the outcome of the study indicated that, there is no statistically significant relationship between IT managers' perceptions of the Act enforcement and their outsourcing recommendations. No relationship was found when their perceptions of the penalty imposed by the Act were considered, either. However, the result showed a statistically significant relationship between their outsourcing recommendations and their perceptions of the clarity in the Act compliance guidance. The results also indicated that IT managers' sourcing decisions are dependent on their perceptions of the role of the IT function in the compliance effort, but independent of their perceptions' of the sourcing policies pursued by companies that are equally responsible for compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.