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The information technology (IT) industry has been continuously expanding. This has resulted in promoting outsourcing of work by clients to vendors. Most of the published research has focussed on when clients should start outsourcing, what to outsource, criteria for vendor selection, etc., however the vendor side of the relationship has been mostly ignored. The purpose of this paper is to delve deep into the vendors’ side and what aspects a vendor needs to consider in order to maintain a good relationship with the clients.

The research design of the paper is to use literature survey to define the components of the client vendor relationship (CVR), identify the parameters impacting the relationship, establish correlation between the independent variables and the dependent variable; subsequently to propose a framework for the CVR.

The findings have been that – communication, technical value addition, knowledge sharing and client vendor adaptability are vital to any outsourcing engagement and if the vendor is able to get good knowledge transfer of the application at hand and the business domain, it can perform better. Vendors, which proactively resolve issues, ensure stable deliveries before time and identify improvements in the software outside the work assigned maintain better relationship. Further a vendor must be adaptable to clients, cultural, time zone differences, should provide a good project manager and be ready to change tools, resources as per client needs. As long as the vendor is able to ensure the above, the stability of the client country and need for information security is not as important to vendors.

The study has limitations as it focusses on the vendors’ side and is inclined toward Indian vendors’ perspectives. Future research can include client as well and can be conducted for a different geography.

The research work is original and adds value to the IT service outsourcing industry by identifying the parameters which need to be monitored for a sustainable CVR.

With the growth in outsourcing it is imperative to understand the vendor’s satisfaction with IT outsourcing relationships since contractual and relationship factors affect the ability of vendors and clients to work together over time. A recent study demonstrated that relational factors such as trust and information exchange dominated in their ability to explain client satisfaction when compared to contractual factors. The purpose of this paper is to further examine how the relational factors work together to lead to vendor satisfaction in an outsourcing relationship.

A survey was developed and pre-tested with vendors in India and client firms in the USA that used international IT vendors. Using data collected from 214 vendor firms in the Indian subcontinent the paper examines the main effect of two client focused variables, namely, competence-based trust and client dependence on vendor satisfaction; it also explores whether social control moderate the main effect relationships.

The findings indicate that client dependence and competence-based trust were significant direct predictors of vendor satisfaction. Social control or the ability to resolve conflicts positively moderated the effect client dependence on vendor satisfaction. But it did not impact the effect of competence-based trust on vendor satisfaction.

The authors identify three limitations: a dyadic analysis using both the client and the vendor perspective would have provided a richer understanding of the relationship; since the data were collected on a cross-sectional basis, it is hard to make predictive assessments; and a limited response rate.

These findings help us understand the factors that impact vendor satisfaction in an outsourcing relationship and this is one of the keys to maintaining a long-term relationship between transacting parties.

Previous studies have explored the relational aspects of a vendor-client interaction from the client’s point of view and, here, the authors take the vendor’s perspective, which is increasingly important due to the increasing complexity of work outsourced. Besides exploring the direct effect competence-based trust and client dependence on vendor satisfaction, the authors also analyze the role of social control as a moderator.

We use experiential learning theory to develop new conceptual insights into offshore outsourcing of innovation. In particular, we show how offshore vendor firms are able to overcome liability of outsidership and eventually learn how to innovate on behalf of their onshore clients as a result of their embedment with clients across multiple teams. We theorize that the cross-border relocation of innovative activities from a client firm to an offshore vendor is only possible when teams within the vendor team have assumed a double-loop learning capability from the client allowing them to determine governing variables relating to the client’s organizational environment. Through direct on-the-job experience working with each other, international teams comprised in part from the vendor and in part from the client can undergo different learning transitions, which we classify as either relationship-oriented or task-oriented. These transitions determine the extent to which double-loop learning can be developed in offshore locations and are influenced by intra-team dynamics and the way the joint teams organize and manage themselves. Our perspective has implications for our understanding of organizational designs associated with both client and vendor multinational enterprises seeking to benefit from innovation in offshore outsourcing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of PRINCE2 (PRoject IN Controlled Environments 2) standard on customer satisfaction jointly with vendor relationship management capability in the information technology outsourcing (ITO) context. This paper further tries to explore the above underlying mechanism by studying the mediating effect of deliverable quality.

This paper develops a mediated moderation model to explain the underlying influence processes of PRINCE2 standard, vendor relationship management capability and deliverable quality on ITO customer satisfaction. By conducting a pair-wise survey of 260 project managers in seven Iranian firms, the model and hypotheses are empirically tested with the partial least squares method.

Our results suggest that firms benefit more in terms of IT costs reduction when they have a higher level of complementary investment in an external standard, especially through an interplay effect of the external standard and internal relational aspect. Firms can make business processes more amenable to outsourcing and facilitate monitoring of vendor performance and effective coordination with vendors. More interestingly, we find that this interactive effect is fully mediated by deliverable quality, which, in turn, directly increases ITO customer satisfaction.

This study adds some new knowledge and provides new views to study ITO customer satisfaction by addressing the importance of PRINCE2 standard. This study further enhances our understanding in terms of the underlying pathway through which the PRINCE2 standard jointly affects customer satisfaction with vendor relationship management capability and deliverable quality. With the effort of explicitly explaining the complex mechanisms, this study helps ITO managers proactively escort outsourcing activities and projects.

The research focuses on the impact of client vendor communication on client satisfaction in information system projects and after client satisfaction that will bridge them toward the information system continuance intention of clients. Importance of this study is to understand the effect of client-vendor communication on client satisfaction.

The sample size of the study was 200 respondents and data was collected from electrical manufacturing industries. It is a quantitative field study, and the time horizon of this study is cross-sectional. The data collected was then analyzed by doing the structural equation modeling in PLS-SEM in order to examine the relationships.

Findings of this study likewise demonstrate the mediating impact of client satisfaction between the relationship of client-vendor communication and information system continuance intention as well as between the relationship of expectation confirmation and information system continuance intention. Future studies may include the multi-motive information system continuance model (MISC) to explain the constructs in more depth because it includes different dimensions of expectation confirmation which will help more to understand information system continuance intention.

This study determines the role of information system continuance intention in terms of client-vendor communication and expectation confirmation through the impact of mediator client satisfaction. Previous studies have explained that client-vendor communication affects client satisfaction positively and confirmation also positively affects the client satisfaction. For this research study, the authors have identified the following research gaps. The authors also have found out that the following study is significant in a related study taken in the developed countries. On the contrary, the authors will follow the study and further observe the impact of improved risks in different cities of Pakistan that how client-vendor communication are affecting the success of information

Although risks and client‐vendor relationships in IT outsourcing have been studied in prior research, there is a paucity of studies providing insights on the mitigation of client risks through the relationship. This research aims to focus on mitigation of the ex post risks of firms engaged in offshore software development (OSD). Client risks due to service provider behavior are identified first. Further, this work seeks to identify relationship variables that could reduce the impact of determinants of risk on a risk category.

This research followed a multiple case study method aiming to build insights and directions that would facilitate further research. The paper's goal of sampling was to choose cases which were likely to extend the emergent theory pertaining to risks and their mitigation through relationships.

Findings from this study show that shirking, loss of control over information assets, and service provider lock‐in are the three categories of ex post risks. A relationship management strategy ensuring reasonable profits to the vendor could mitigate shirking risk. Trustworthiness of vendors established through credibility and benevolence in prior engagements could mitigate the risk of loss of control over information assets. Further, dependence balancing through a multi‐vendor offshoring strategy and joint investments in relationship‐specific assets could mitigate the risk of service provider lock‐in.

The findings from this research provide useful insights in vendor selection and management process.

This paper adds to the growing body of literature in offshore IT outsourcing and makes two significant contributions: identification and categorization of risks due to vendor behavior and their determinants in OSD; and understanding the role of relationship dimension in mitigating such risks in OSD.

This study aims to examine how the role of peripheral knowledge changes along with the perspectives of vendor and client in inter-organizational IT outsourcing. To this end, this study tests the effects of the peripheral knowledge of vendors and clients on IT outsourcing performance under three different combinations of performance-assessing views from both parties.

To contrast the effects of the peripheral knowledge of vendors and clients based on their views, this study collects matching data on 107 projects from both parties. The survey method is adopted to measure the peripheral knowledge levels of vendors and clients and IT outsourcing success. The associations between peripheral knowledge and IT outsourcing performance are then assessed when the views match, cross and agree to a certain level.

The peripheral knowledge of vendors plays a more significant role than that of clients in most IT outsourcing cases. Moreover, the agreement between the peripheral knowledge of vendors and clients shows a moderating effect only when the performance is assessed by clients than by vendors.

This study contrasts the peripheral knowledge of vendors and clients by altering performance-assessing views in IT outsourcing. This study also rationalizes why the peripheral knowledge of vendors is more important than that of clients, as well as explains whose perspective is more significant when the performance is assessed.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a strategic conflict analysis, based on the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR), that is applied to information technology outsourcing (ITO) in a real-world software development and implementation process in Brazil.

Because the idea of this study is to answer “why” the ITO conflicts occur and “how” they can be avoided, the case study methodology was adopted. The software GMCR II was used to analyze the interactions between an IT vendor and an IT client.

The results suggest that a lack of relational governance is a critical issue that could be handled to improve the interaction between those involved.

The main results are restricted to the case study and cannot be generalized. Moreover, a specific limitation of this paper pertains to the use of the GMCR and the consequent difficulty for IT vendors and IT clients to work with a large number of actions and to set preferences for several states of conflict.

The strategic analysis of outsourcing conflicts provides a holistic view of the current situation that may assist the client and vendor in future decisions and identify guidelines to ensure successful ITO. Therefore, this paper provides an effective guide for clients and vendors to better manage conflicts and establish a contingency vision to avoid such disputes.

The ITO conflict is analyzed using the GMCR, considering both perspectives of the outsourcing process (vendors and clients).

This paper aims to investigate the effects of vendor – client relationship on organizational success in the hospitality industry. The relationship between vendors and clients regarding information technology outsourcing does not always go in harmony. In the viewpoint of hospitality practitioners, information technology (IT) providers do not necessarily abide by the given promises stated on contracts, all the time. The service flows, which are mostly generated by the lack of quality relationship between vendors and clients directly affect hotels’ organizational performance.

Data were collected by an online survey and analyzed using multivariable statistics (path analysis) to determine the effects of service quality and relationship quality on outsourcing success, and its effect on organizational performance. Data from 102 valid responses received from ten different countries, representing 230 hotels in total were analyzed.

Service quality and relationship quality, which are two dimensions of outsourcing relationships, were found to be positively related to outsourcing success (r = 0.60 and 0.70, p < 0.01, respectively) and intangible organizational performance (r = 0.20, p < 0.05; 0.26 and 0.27, p < 0.01, respectively).

The research was designed to investigate the IT outsourcing service receiver’s (client) perspective. The IT service provider’s (vendor) perspective is disregarded. Disturbance results are very high (i.e. more than 0.95). This may well be the case that certain facets of the outsourcing success construct are not adequately represented by the chosen indicators. Research results may reveal an idea about the research subject, in general, but may not be generalized to the whole industry due to its sampling size. Finally, the survey was conducted online, and all online research restrictions were applicable to this research such as receiving very limited response rates.

The results of this research provide important information for practitioners in the hospitality industry and IT service providers. Relationship quality between vendor and client was observed to be the most determinant factor in IT outsourcing success.

The proposed model may well serve as a framework for further examining mediating and possible moderating variables.

There is limited research in the previous literature investigating the relationship between information technology vendor and client, in terms of service quality and relationship quality in hospitality industry. This paper may serve to fill in this gap.

Enterprise systems are commonly implemented by firms through outsourcing arrangements with software vendors. However, deriving benefits from these implementations has proved to be a challenge, and a great deal of variation has been observed in the extent of value generated for client and vendor firms. This research examines the role of co-specialization as a strategy to make the most out of outsourced enterprise systems. The authors develop hypotheses relating resource co-specialization with two indicators of success for implementation of enterprise software: (1) exchange success and (2) firm growth.

The hypotheses are tested using a unique panel data set of 175 firms adopting Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software, a type of enterprise system used for managing manufacturing and logistics. The authors identify organizational factors that support co-specialization and then examine how co-specialization is associated with enterprise software implementation success, controlling for the endogenous choice to co-specialize.

The empirical results suggest that resource co-specialization is positively associated with implementation success and that the two resource co-specialization pathways that are examined complement each other in providing performance benefits.

This paper contributes to the research literature on outsourcing. The study also provides a new empirical test using a unique data set of 175 firms adopting APS Software.