Georg Hodosi

Assessing the risk exposure in IT outsourcing for large companies

The decision process for companies to outsource information technology (IT) or not is a substantial business change and in many cases the competence to take such decisions is limited and has major consequences for the companys future performance. In this context, the paper is presenting the design of an information technology outsourcing (ITO) tool that includes a procedure based on transaction cost theory (TCT) for assessing the risk exposure in ITO. The ITO tool presented in this paper is a useful and effective instrument for the IT decision-makers in support of decisions to outsource IT or not. In the development of the ITO tool, we have approached two large companies in Sweden with more than 20 years experiences in ITO that helped us in the improvement and evaluation of the usability and effectiveness of this tool.

The Impact of Different Organizational Cultures on IT Outsourcing Relationship Management

Globalization has affected the organizations in many aspects such as structure, architecture, internal/external strategies and sourcing management. Outsourcing is one of the recent business strategies used to provide IT needs via external agents. The relationship between the service buyer and provider companies is a constituent playing a significant role in IT outsourcing success or failure. This research has a focus on the influence of organizational culture of buyer companies on the specific factors of trust, cooperation, communication and commitment in their relationship with the IT service provider. Two explorative case studies are done in global companies using ITO which revealed the presence of organizational culture effect. Particularly, being innovative, having open discussion as an organizational culture and looking for extending contracts with providers as a strategy, appeared as the major difference between the two cases organizational culture; which influences the studied factors of ITO relationship in this research.

A Risk Based View of Influential Factors in IT Outsourcing Relationship for Large Multinational Companies : A Service Buyer Perspective

Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) is well spread among large Multinational Companies (MNCs) in Europe, and it is expected to increase even more. The authors’ focus is the service buyer company who needs a well working relation with its ITO supplier for handling emergent issues, daily operation and events that have not been foreseen. In the last years, an increasing attention has been paid to improve ITO relationship. Reviewing the research literature, they have not found any studies about Influential Factors (IFs) that could improve the ITO relationship, nor, how risk factors are interrelated to ITO relationship. Therefore, the authors address this issue by providing 15 IFs that could improve the ITO relationship for large MNCs and their providers and could help the service buyers companies’ to concentrate on these IFs. Additionally, the authors developed a framework that could support the ITO decision makers in both mitigating the risks and improving the ITO relationship.

Key Factors in Managing IT Outsourcing Relationships

Relationship management in IT Outsourcing (ITO) is today an important concern in many organizations. In the review of research literature regarding relationship management in IT outsourcing we have found a lot research on best practices but not on key factors. Therefore our research goal has looked to find the key factors in managing IT outsourcing relationships that are including the best practices in ITO relationships. The results of this research has due to a list of six key factors that includes the best practices that were elicited from the IT outsourcing relationships research and which were applied in the case of three organizations in Sweden. The analysis of the results has shown both deviations as well as compliances between the theory and practices, but also deviations between the views of these key factors in the studied organizations.

Risk Factors in IT Outsourcing and the Theories Decision Makers Use to Resolve Them

In this paper the Risk Factors (RFs) in IT Outsourcing (ITO) theories from a service buyer perspective are explored. A comparative study about how Transaction Cost Theory (TCT), Core Competency Theory (CCT) and Agency Theory (AT) cover the RFs has been performed. A framework describing, how the theories cover the RFs has been developed and tested using a case study research methodology. The interviews with companies for testing the framework have been used to get an indication about which ITO theories the decision makers are using in their ITO. This study shows that TCT fully covers all RFs, AT covers almost all and CCT has the lowest coverage. The theories, which are used by the ITO decision makers, could only partially be answered. Risk handling could not be entirely mapped to the theories. Risk and risk mitigation were the main concerns for some of the interviewees, CCT for some others. This study recommends using both TCT and CCT for a successful ITO.

User Acceptance of a Software Tool for Decision Making in IT Outsourcing: A Qualitative Study in Large Companies from Sweden

Decisions for IT outsourcing are very complex and needs to be supported by considerations based on many (multiple) criteria. In order to facilitate the use of a specific tool by a decision-maker in IT outsourcing, we need to find out whether such a tool for this purpose will be accepted or rejected or what improvements must be added to this tool to be accepted by some IT decision makers in large companies from Sweden.

Management Guidelines for Database Developers’ Teams in Software Development Projects

Worldwide job market for database developers (DBDs) is continually increasing in last several years. In some companies, DBDs are organized as a special team (DBDs team) to support other projects and roles. As a new role, the DBDs team is facing a major problem that there are not any management guidelines for them. The team manager does not know which kinds of tasks should be assigned to this team and what practices should be used during DBDs work. Therefore in this paper we have developed a set of management guidelines, which includes 8 fundamental tasks and 17 practices from software development process, by using two methodologies Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and agile software development in particular Scrum in order to improve the DBDs team work. Moreover the management guidelines developed here has been complemented with practices from authors’ experience in this area and has been evaluated in the case of a software company. The management guidelines for DBD teams presented in this paper could be very usefully for other companies too that are using a DBDs team and could contribute towards an increase of the efficiency of these teams in their work on software development projects.

Does Organizational Culture Matter in IT Outsourcing Relationships

IT Outsourcing (ITO) is used widely by Multinational Companies (MNCs) as a sourcing strategy today. ITO relationship between service buyer and provider then becomes a crucial issue in achieving expected objectives. This research sheds light on the influence of organizational culture (OC) of the buyer company on its ITO relationship with the provider. More specifically, the influence that OC can have on four significant dimensions of trust, cooperation, communication and commitment in ITO is studied through a qualitative analysis. IT managers of six MNCs were interviewed which exposed the connection between OC and ITO relationship factors. An open communication culture, speed of adaption to change, receiving innovative solutions, flat or hierarchical structures and responsibility degree appeared as the most visible differences between OCs of MNCs influencing ITO relationships. The results can be used for improving the ITO by considering the influence of OC to gain more benefits from outsourcing.