| These three interrelated essays study the central problems organizations face in managing outsourcing relationships. The first essay1 identifies a multi-theoretic model of the longevity of IS sourcing relationships. This study identifies factors that influence the contract duration as well as relationship duration in IS sourcing arrangements. The research question raised at this stage was what forces influence the continuation or dissolution of on-going sourcing relationships? To answer this question, nationwide survey data was tested using a survival analysis technique with an accelerated failure time method.; The second essay2 addresses the issue of how IT capabilities of firms can influence their strategic IS sourcing decisions today using two key dimensions. These two dimensions are the, strategic values of IT resources/capabilities delivered and the relative presence of IT resources/capabilities vis-a-vis competition in the market. Both of these dimensions were grounded upon resource dependence theory and resource-based view. This study attempts to focus purely on a firm's IT resources/capabilities in its IT sourcing decision, after controlling the efficiency factor such as cost consideration. In order to empirically validate the framework, a two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA)-partial least squares (PLS) approach is employed using a set of survey data. In doing so, "efficiency scores" of DEA (Charnes et al. 1994) were estimated to capture the relative presence of IT resources/capabilities of firms vis-a-vis competition and then were carried over to PLS as a proxy measure.; The third essay3 discusses how relational elements in service level agreements (SLAs) aid the service recipient in developing relational attributes such as commitment or trust, which in turn improve an outsourcing relationship. Grounded on the theory of relational exchange, this paper identified those relational elements in SLAs, or seeds for cultivating favorable exchange relationships and tested hypotheses using PLS. Data was collected from Korea using a survey. Results strongly support that success of outsourcing relationships depends on working out the relational aspects of a contract. The upfront structuring of an outsourcing relationship results in "seeds" from which exchange relations can grow and value can be created.; 1The article was invited to revise and resubmit under MISQ. The paper is being revised accordingly. 2An earlier version of the essay was accepted by the fourteenth annual Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE), December 14--15, 2002, Barcelona, Spain. 3An earlier version of the essay was published in the Proceedings of the Ninth American Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), August 4--6, 2003, Tampa, Florida. |
