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The great promise of software‐as‐a‐service lies in its ability to deliver at a much lower cost and at much greater speed. In the future, software will be delivered in such a way that business customers can pick and choose entire applications or parts of them, paying on a per‐use or subscription basis. To fulfill this need, a new type of business enterprise has arisen, application service providers (ASPs). This paper identifies various success factors, or best practices selection guidelines, potential ASP customers/users should consider when choosing an ASP. These success factors were developed – using experiences of successful ASPs presented in groups based on their underlying business models – from customer requirements, a major driver in the ASP market.

To provide students and academia with an opportunity to gain an understanding of recent trends and issues regarding the application service providers (ASP) market.

A range of recently published (1999‐2003) works, which provide practical issues, is reviewed to explore the existing pricing models, selecting an ASP and risk/rewards associated with ASPs.

Provides guidance to businesses in selecting an ASP in terms of key questions to be asked and discusses the importance of selecting reliable ASPs. It also recognizes key areas academia should emphasize in teaching students outsourcing of IT.

It is not an extensive study of the issues and trends of ASPs. The paper does not review in detail the impact of outsourcing on organizational participants, which perhaps limits its usefulness in a complex business world.

A very useful source of information for businesses making outsourcing decisions. The paper provides impartial advice for students and academia and for those who want to conduct research on outsourcing evaluation.

This paper provides important insights on recent trends and issues of ASPs, especially in evaluating the performance of ASPs.

The article explores to what extent party politics has influenced the different trajectories in Spain and Italy in terms of gendered active social policies (ASPs) (i.e. ALMPs and WLBPs). Second, it investigates how social and political modernization in the two countries has facilitated or hindered party competition on gendered ASPs.

To investigate to what extent parties support gendered ASPs, the article relies on an original content analysis of party manifestos issued during the 2010s national elections. A total of 1387 quasi-sentences have been coded. The results were then quantified to graphically show how positions differentiate across parties and countries.

The content analysis of party manifestos displays that party politics matters: gendered ASPs are backed in a very different way by the Spanish and Italian parties. While in Spain all political parties have strongly championed ALMPs and WLBPs, this is not the case for the Italian parties. The research has also stressed that the specific path of social and political modernization is an important intervening variable that alters positively or negatively parties' support for gendered ASPs.

The article contributes to widen theoretically and empirically the literature on ASPs in the Southern European countries. Theoretically, it questions the supposed homogeneity of the Southern social model and investigated the alleged bifurcation between Italy and Spain, focusing on those policies – ASPs – that constitute the foundations of the Southern model: familialism and dualization. Furthermore, this bifurcation was analyzed adopting a gender perspective, and exploring adherence to or departure from the Southern model. Third, the article focuses on the politics of ASPs demonstrating that inspecting the political arena can contribute to explain policy change.

The phenomenal growth of the Internet has persuaded many companies of its potential as a channel for outsourcing information systems applications. Application service providers (ASP) are firms that offer outsourcing application services to many organizations via the Internet. By contracting ASP, organizations are having information technology (IT) staff focusing their efforts on core competencies while, at the same time, capitalizing on the expertise of outsourcer. On the other hand, many ASP turn some of their projects to global outsourcer. The study develops a framework that identifies the critical factors influencing ASP' decision to outsource globally. These factors are product development costs, IT talent, product quality, communication technology, tax incentives, and cultural differences. The rest of the paper discusses the differences between different types of global outsourcing, explore the emerging trend and advantages of utilizing ASP, and recommend measures to ensure the success of projects to be developed globally. The framework developed in this paper represents a foundation for more rigorous empirical research to identify the significance of each influencing factor. The results can provide ASP managers with a road map that addresses issues of concern in global outsourcing.

During the design of a new product, the generation of assembly sequences plans (ASPs) has become one of the most important problems taken into account by researchers. In fact, a good mounting order allows the time decrease of the assembly process which leads to the reduction of production costs. In this context, researchers developed several methods to generate and optimize ASP based on various criteria. Although this paper aims to improve the quality of ASP it is necessary to increase the number of criteria which must be taken into account when generating ASPs.

In this paper, an ASP generation approach, which is based on three main algorithms, is proposed. The first one generates a set of assembly sequences based on stability criteria. The obtained results are treated by the second algorithm which is based on assembly tools (ATs) workspace criterion. An illustrative example is used to explain the different steps of this proposed approach. Moreover, a comparative study is done to highlight its advantages.

The proposed algorithm verifies, for each assembly sequence, the minimal required workspace of used AT and eliminates the ASPs non-respecting this criterion. Finally, the remaining assembly sequences are treated by the third algorithm to reduce the AT change during the mounting operation.

The proposed approach introduces the concept of AT workspace to simulate and select ASPs that respect this criterion. The dynamic interference process allows the eventual collision detection between tool and component and avoids it. The proposed approach reduces the AT change during the mounting operations.

Traditionally, entrepreneurs and small businesses have faced difficulties when competing with entrenched firms for customers and expanding into global markets. The World Wide Web (WWW) is one approach to overcoming obstacles by giving organizations a direct connection to potential customers and suppliers on a global level. However, complex technology, security, and reliability present significant challenges to the entrepreneur or small business owner about to enter the e‐business arena. Difficulties are especially notable when the business operates in a non‐Web‐related field or when it has relatively few individuals with IT (information technology)/Web experience. Facing these challenges alone by hiring or developing an in‐house technology staff and building a support infrastructure is costly and may be risky. An alternative, contracting for Web‐based services from an application service provider (ASP), effectively reduces cost and risk while preserving the competitive advantage of the entrepreneurial firm. This paper describes the use of the ASP concept to allow an entrepreneurial firm to compete effectively in the global market.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative importance of global sector effects in African sector portfolios (ASPs). It explores the dynamics of the rate of change and the level of global sector effects in their respective ASPs.

The variance of African industry returns is decomposed to the component attributable to the corresponding global industry and the proportion that is African industry specific. The authors then scale the global component by the African sector-specific component to obtain the relative global sector influences in their corresponding ASP returns.

The evidence suggests that global sector effects are dominated by African industry-specific influences on the African markets; however, in the recent period the global sector influence has risen in importance. Additionally, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis had significant impact in the relative global sector effects in the ASPs. Turning points in the rate of change of and the relative importance of the corresponding global sector effects in the ASPs are identified. The findings infer time-varying global sector effects in their respective ASPs. The evidence suggests sector-level differences in the diversification gain of the ASPs.

The ASPs offer global investors the opportunity for diversification gains when included in geographically diversified portfolio within the same sector, although, global sector effects on the African markets have increased recently.

This paper presents research findings from an in‐depth study on the global application service provider (ASP) industry. It explores the potential for Web‐enabling enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for small and medium‐sized companies on a per‐seat, per‐month basis. Findings from field research suggest that, while the ASP business model offers many advantages for customers, few companies are prepared to outsource their mission‐critical ERP systems to ASPs. This situation has led to many large and small ASP vendors to re‐think their strategic business plans, with some high profile failures. Evaluating the situation from a market, organizational and technical analysis of the ASP industry, this paper argues that, while the ASP model is currently immature, the next three years will see the emergence of more clearly defined enterprise ASP offerings from key players in the software and computing services industry.

This paper seeks to understand effects of ASP utilization on organization performance measured in terms of satisfaction and educational effectiveness on the part of the customer firm.

This study follows the positivist approach. After a research framework was developed and hypotheses defined, based on a thorough ASP literature review, data were collected from small firms which use ASP services. Results were discussed to suggest strategic directions of ASPs.

The results show that when customer firms perceive good service at a reasonable fee, they exhibit a high level of satisfaction with the service provider. Customer satisfaction is found to be significantly related to organizational performance. Also, the education content of training programs significantly influences educational effectiveness, which in turn contributes to organizational performance by impacting customer service.

The results of the study would help practitioners and researchers better understand ASP customers. The scope of this study is limited to leading IT adoption countries.

Based on the customer perspective, this paper delineates factors of ASP services that support small firms to be more successful.

Application service providers (ASPs) are expected to become a $25 billion industry by 2004. A firm’s decision to build or buy its IT infrastructure is dependent upon an application of transaction cost theory. These theories substantively explain a firm’s decision to outsource IT services to an ASP. This paper examines the ASP model through the lens of Williamson’s transaction cost model. The applications of this model explain many of the current market trends and provide insight into the continued success of the ASP model. The conclusion provides additional decision criteria for those practitioners who are in the decision process of outsourcing the IT function to an ASP.