Knowledge in software-maintenance outsourcing projects: beyond integration of business and technical knowledge

Knowledge processes are critical to outsourced software projects. According to outsourcing research, outsourced software projects succeed if they manage to integrate the client’s business knowledge and the vendor’s technical knowledge. In this paper, we submit that this view may not be wrong, but incomplete in a significant part of outsourced software work, which is software maintenance. Data from six software-maintenance outsourcing transitions indicate that more important than business or technical knowledge can be application knowledge, which vendor engineers acquire over time during practice. Application knowledge was the dominant knowledge during knowledge transfer activities and its acquisition enabled vendor staff to solve maintenance tasks. We discuss implications for widespread assumptions in outsourcing research.

Information Technology Outsourcing: Towards Sustainable Business Value

This book attempts to synthesize research that contributes to a better understanding of how to reach sustainable business value through information systems (IS) outsourcing. Important topics in this realm are how IS outsourcing can contribute to innovation, how it can be dynamically governed, how to cope with its increasing complexity through multi-vendor arrangements, how service quality standards can be met, how corporate social responsibility can be upheld, and how to cope with increasing demands of internationalization and new sourcing models, such as crowdsourcing and platform-based cooperation. These issues are viewed from either the client or vendor perspective, or both. The book should be of interest to all academics and students in the fields of Information Systems, Management, and Organization as well as corporate executives and professionals who seek a more profound analysis and understanding of the underlying factors and mechanisms of outsourcing.

The Emergence of Formal Control Specificity in Information Systems Outsourcing: A Process-View

Information systems (IS) outsourcing projects often fail to achieve initial goals. To avoid project failure, managers need to design formal controls that meet the specific contextual demands of the project. However, the dynamic and uncertain nature of IS outsourcing projects makes it difficult to design such specific formal controls at the outset of a project. It is hence crucial to translate high-level project goals into specific formal controls during the course of a project. This study seeks to understand the underlying patterns of such translation processes. Based on a comparative case study of four outsourced software development projects, we inductively develop a process model that consists of three unique patterns. The process model shows that the performance implications of emergent controls with higher specificity depend on differences in the translation process. Specific formal controls have positive implications for goal achievement if only the stakeholder context is adapted, while they are negative for goal achievement if in the translation process tasks are unintendedly adapted. In the latter case projects incrementally drift away from their initial direction. Our findings help to better understand control dynamics in IS outsourcing projects. We contribute to a process theoretic understanding of IS outsourcing governance and we derive implications for control theory and the IS project escalation literature.

Information Systems Outsourcing: Towards Sustainable Business Value

This book attempts to synthesize research that contributes to a better understanding of how to reach sustainable business value through information systems (IS) outsourcing. Important topics in this realm are how IS outsourcing can contribute to innovation, how it can be dynamically governed, how to cope with its increasing complexity through multi-vendor arrangements, how service quality standards can be met, how corporate social responsibility can be upheld and how to cope with increasing demands of internationalization and new sourcing models, such as crowdsourcing and platform-based cooperation. These issues are viewed from either the client or vendor perspective, or both. The book should be of interest to all academics and students in the fields of Information Systems, Management and Organization as well as corporate executives and professionals who seek a more profound analysis and understanding of the underlying factors and mechanisms of outsourcing.

Coercive, Normative, and Mimetic Influences on the Assimilation of BCM in Outsourcing Relationships

Today many business processes are based on IT systems. These systems are exposed to different threats, which may lead to failures of critical business pro-cesses. Thus, enterprises prepare themselves against threats and failures of critical IT systems by means of Business Continuity Management (BCM). The phe-nomenon of outsourcing introduces a new dimension to BCM. In an outsourcing relationship the client organization is still responsible for the continuity of its processes but does not have full control over the implemented business continuity measures. In this paper we build a research model based on institutional and assimilation theories to describe and explain how and why BCM is assimilated in outsourcing relationships. In our case studies we found evidence that primarily coercive and normative pressures influence the assimilation of BCM in outsourcing relationships and support the explanation of variation across enterprises. Mimetic pressures seem to influence the assimilation but do not explain variations.

Object-Based Customization of Learning Content: Potentials and Pitfalls

Specification consortia and standardization bodies concentrate on e-Learning objects to en-sure reusability of content. Learning objects may be collected in a library and used for deriv-ing course offerings that are customized to the needs of different learning communities. How-ever, customization of courses is possible only if the logical dependencies between the learn-ing objects are known. Metadata for describing object relationships have been proposed in several e-Learning specifications. This paper discusses the customization potential of e-Learning objects but also the pitfalls that exist if content is customized inappropriately.

Rethinking ERP-Outsourcing Decisions for Leveraging Technological and Preserving Business Knowledge

During the selection, implementation and stabilization phases, as well as the operations and optimization phase of an ERP system (ERP-lifecycle), numerous companies consider to utilize the support of an external service provider. This paper analyses how different categories of knowledge influence the sourcing decision of crucial tasks within the ERP lifecycle. Based on a review of the IS outsourcing literature, essential knowledge-related determinants for the IS outsourcing decision are presented and aggregated in a structural model. It will be hypothesized that internal deficits in technological knowledge in comparison to external vendors as well as the specificity of the synthesis of special technological and specific business knowledge have a profound impact on the outsourcing decision. Then, a classification framework will be developed which facilitates the assignment of various tasks within the ERP lifecycle to their respective knowledge categories and knowledge carriers which might be internal or external stakeholders. The configuaration task will be used as an example to illustrate how the structural model and the classification framework may be applied to evaluate the outsourcing of tasks within the ERP lifecycle.

Everyone is; should healthcare? Outsourcing: Issues in strategic planning, organizational culture, and organizational ethics

Expenditures for personal health services in the United States have doubled over the last decade. They continue to outpace the growth rate of the gross national product. Costs for medical care have steadily increased at an annual rate well above the rate of inflation and have gradually outstripped payers' ability to meet their premiums. This limitation of resources justifies the ongoing healthcare reform strategies to maximize utilization and minimize costs. The majority of the cost-containment effort has focused on hospitals, as they account for about 40 percent of total health expenditures. Although good patient outcomes have long been identified as healthcare's central concern, continuing cost pressures from both regulatory reforms and the restructuring of healthcare financing have recently made improving fiscal performance an essential goal for healthcare organizations. ^ The search for financial performance, quality improvement, and fiscal accountability has led to outsourcing, which is the hiring of a third party to perform a task previously and traditionally done in-house. The incomparable nature and overwhelming dissimilarities between health and other commodities raise numerous administrative, organizational, policy and ethical issues for administrators who contemplate outsourcing. This evaluation of the outsourcing phenomenon, how it has developed and is currently practiced in healthcare, will explore the reasons that healthcare organizations gravitate toward outsourcing as a strategic management tool to cut costs in an environment of continuing escalating spending. ^ This dissertation has four major findings. First, it suggests that U.S. hospitals in FY2000 spent an estimated $61 billion in outsourcing. Second, it finds that the proportion of healthcare outsourcing highly correlates with several types of hospital controlling authorities and specialties. Third, it argues that healthcare outsourcing has implications in strategic organizational issues, professionalism, and organizational ethics that warrant further public policy discussions before expanding its limited use beyond hospital “hotel functions” and back office business processes. Finally, it devises an outsourcing suitability scale that organizations can utilize to ensure the most strategic option for outsourcing and concludes with some public policy implications and recommendations for its limited use. ^

Outsourcing documental en unidades de información

El outsourcing o externalización de servicios es una herramienta de gestión que delega un área o actividad de trabajo de una organización a una empresa externa, llamada outsourcer, especializada en el servicio demandado. Entregar un proceso en outsorcing puede resultar complejo a causa de los procesos que están involucrados. Por ello es necesaria una evaluación que permita la selección del proveedor de outsorcing. La investigación se propone: 1. Elaborar un análisis comparativo de empresas que brindan servicios documentales a unidades de información, 2. Aportar una herramienta metodológica que permita evaluarlas teniendo en cuenta criterios específicos para aquellas que realizan outsorcing documental, 3. Evaluar una muestra de empresas como ejemplo de aplicación de la criteria creada. Se estudiarán empresas de servicios documentales de Argentina y España y se confeccionará una criteria como medio para validarla. Se empleará la herramienta creada para evaluar una muestra de empresas y, por último, se tabularán los datos y analizarán los resultados. Se espera que la difusión de los resultados contribuya a que las unidades de información puedan responder a los cambios del entorno a través del incremento del nivel de calidad de sus actividades, aumentar la flexibilidad de las organizaciones asegurando la supervivencia organizacional en los procesos que generan los productos y servicios, en la manera de hacerlos y ofrecerlos, estimular el interés de optar por el outsorcing como nueva forma de gestión tratando de asistir a quienes deban seleccionar empresas prestadoras de servicios documentales, reducir y controlar los costos operativos.

Outsourcing documental en unidades de información

El outsourcing o externalización de servicios es una herramienta de gestión que delega un área o actividad de trabajo de una organización a una empresa externa, llamada outsourcer, especializada en el servicio demandado. Entregar un proceso en outsourcing puede resultar complejo a causa de los procesos que están involucrados. Por ello es necesaria una evaluación que permita la selección del proveedor de outsourcing. La investigación se propuso: 1. Elaborar un análisis comparativo de empresas que brindan servicios documentales a unidades de información, 2. Aportar una herramienta metodológica que permita evaluarlas teniendo en cuenta criterios específicos para aquellas que realizan outsourcing documental, 3. Evaluar una muestra de empresas como ejemplo de aplicación de la criteria creada. Se estudiaron empresas de servicios documentales de Argentina y España y se confeccionó una criteria como medio para validarla. Se empleó la herramienta creada para evaluar una muestra de empresas y, por último, se tabularon los datos y analizaron los resultados. Se espera que la difusión de los resultados contribuya a que las unidades de información puedan responder a los cambios del entorno a través del incremento del nivel de calidad de sus actividades, aumentar la flexibilidad de las organizaciones asegurando la supervivencia organizacional en los procesos que generan los productos y servicios, en la manera de hacerlos y ofrecerlos, estimular el interés de optar por el outsourcing como nueva forma de gestión tratando de asistir a quienes deban seleccionar empresas prestadoras de servicios documentales, reducir y controlar los costos operativos

Outsourcing documental en unidades de información

El outsourcing o externalización de servicios es una herramienta de gestión que delega un área o actividad de trabajo de una organización a una empresa externa, llamada outsourcer, especializada en el servicio demandado. Entregar un proceso en outsourcing puede resultar complejo a causa de los procesos que están involucrados. Por ello es necesaria una evaluación que permita la selección del proveedor de outsourcing. La investigación se propuso: 1. Elaborar un análisis comparativo de empresas que brindan servicios documentales a unidades de información, 2. Aportar una herramienta metodológica que permita evaluarlas teniendo en cuenta criterios específicos para aquellas que realizan outsourcing documental, 3. Evaluar una muestra de empresas como ejemplo de aplicación de la criteria creada. Se estudiaron empresas de servicios documentales de Argentina y España y se confeccionó una criteria como medio para validarla. Se empleó la herramienta creada para evaluar una muestra de empresas y, por último, se tabularon los datos y analizaron los resultados. Se espera que la difusión de los resultados contribuya a que las unidades de información puedan responder a los cambios del entorno a través del incremento del nivel de calidad de sus actividades, aumentar la flexibilidad de las organizaciones asegurando la supervivencia organizacional en los procesos que generan los productos y servicios, en la manera de hacerlos y ofrecerlos, estimular el interés de optar por el outsourcing como nueva forma de gestión tratando de asistir a quienes deban seleccionar empresas prestadoras de servicios documentales, reducir y controlar los costos operativos

Outsourcing documental en unidades de información

El outsourcing o externalización de servicios es una herramienta de gestión que delega un área o actividad de trabajo de una organización a una empresa externa, llamada outsourcer, especializada en el servicio demandado. Entregar un proceso en outsorcing puede resultar complejo a causa de los procesos que están involucrados. Por ello es necesaria una evaluación que permita la selección del proveedor de outsorcing. La investigación se propone: 1. Elaborar un análisis comparativo de empresas que brindan servicios documentales a unidades de información, 2. Aportar una herramienta metodológica que permita evaluarlas teniendo en cuenta criterios específicos para aquellas que realizan outsorcing documental, 3. Evaluar una muestra de empresas como ejemplo de aplicación de la criteria creada. Se estudiarán empresas de servicios documentales de Argentina y España y se confeccionará una criteria como medio para validarla. Se empleará la herramienta creada para evaluar una muestra de empresas y, por último, se tabularán los datos y analizarán los resultados. Se espera que la difusión de los resultados contribuya a que las unidades de información puedan responder a los cambios del entorno a través del incremento del nivel de calidad de sus actividades, aumentar la flexibilidad de las organizaciones asegurando la supervivencia organizacional en los procesos que generan los productos y servicios, en la manera de hacerlos y ofrecerlos, estimular el interés de optar por el outsorcing como nueva forma de gestión tratando de asistir a quienes deban seleccionar empresas prestadoras de servicios documentales, reducir y controlar los costos operativos.