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1 – 10 of over 19000David Preston and Kathryn Brohman
IIntroduces a conceptual model developed to explore outsourcing of data warehouse usage by organizations. Data warehouse business users rely on reporting, ad hoc analysis, and data…
Abstract
IIntroduces a conceptual model developed to explore outsourcing of data warehouse usage by organizations. Data warehouse business users rely on reporting, ad hoc analysis, and data‐mining tools to support both operational and strategic decision making. Organizations have a vested interest in data warehousing; however, many organizations are constrained by the high costs associated with data warehouse development as well as the scarcity of complex skills required to use the data warehouse. One way to lower costs and gain access to scarce human skills is to outsource through the use of an application service provider. This paper presents the results of a theoretical evaluation conducted to explore data warehouse outsourcing of business usage (i.e. reporting, ad hoc analysis, and data mining). Results of this theoretical evaluation are summarized in a conceptual model that will be tested using field studies in future research.
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Maria Karyda, Evangelia Mitrou and Gerald Quirchmayr
This paper seeks to provide an overview of the major technical, organizational and legal issues pertaining to the outsourcing of IS/IT security services.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to provide an overview of the major technical, organizational and legal issues pertaining to the outsourcing of IS/IT security services.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a combined socio‐technical approach to explore the different aspects of IS/IT security outsourcing and suggests a framework for accommodating security and privacy requirements that arise in outsourcing arrangements.
Findings
Data protection requirements are a decisive factor for IS/IT security outsourcing, not only because they pose restrictions to management, but also because security and privacy concerns are commonly cited among the most important concerns prohibiting organizations from IS/IT outsourcing. New emerging trends such as outsourcing in third countries, pose significant new issues, with regard to meeting data protection requirements.
Originality/value
The paper illustrates the reasons for which the outsourcing of IS/IT security needs to be examined under a different perspective from traditional IS/IT outsourcing. It focuses on the specific issue of personal data protection requirements that must be accommodated, according to the European Union directive.
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Satu Kalliola and Jukka Niemelä
Outsourcing has gained favor since the 1980s, and Finnish paper companies used it as late as 2006, when a group of female cleaners were outsourced from the case plant of this…
Abstract
Outsourcing has gained favor since the 1980s, and Finnish paper companies used it as late as 2006, when a group of female cleaners were outsourced from the case plant of this study. This article focuses on the context of outsourcing, characterized by the bargaining power and choices made by the bargaining parties, the responses of the cleaners over time and the potential theoretical explanations of the outcome. The responses, such as disappointment and anger, mental and physical tiredness, sickness absenteeism, and starting to get adjusted, were interpreted in the frameworks of occupational culture, the job characteristics model, old and new craftsmanship, and relational and transactional psychological contracts. The method was a combination of naturalistic inquiry and abduction. The study points out that more than one theoretical framework was needed to gain an understanding of the situation.
Boniface Michael and Rashmi Michael
Outsourcing of information technology jobs outside the USA has resulted in social costs in the form of mass layoffs and displaced workers. The purpose of this paper is to show the…
Abstract
Purpose
Outsourcing of information technology jobs outside the USA has resulted in social costs in the form of mass layoffs and displaced workers. The purpose of this paper is to show the social cost of outsourcing from a transaction cost economics (TCE) perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyses the incidences of mass layoffs in sectors prone to outsourcing and its consequences on displaced workers. Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) and the Displaced Workers Survey (DWS) data generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), USA, between 1996 and 2010, are examined for this purpose.
Findings
Outsourcing as a reason for mass layoffs has continued to persist up until 2010. Displaced workers experienced earnings losses after job losses and reemployment. The more educated workers had higher post displacement reemployment rates, while older persons suffered the most earnings losses.
Research limitations/implications
The data pertain to the period 1996 to 2010, including the “Dot Com Bubble Bust” and the “Great Recession.” Changes in data collection methods by BLS over this time period makes it difficult to compare some of the data.
Practical implications
For policy makers, managers and workers, this study focuses attention on the outsourcing by information technology dependent sectors and the accompanying social costs in the form of displaced workers.
Originality/value
Most papers focus on the efficiency gains of outsourcing but this paper focuses attention on the social cost of outsourcing, which is under‐researched and often overlooked.
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Aruna Kumari Koppaka and Vadlamani Naga Lakshmi
In the cloud-computing environment, privacy preservation and enabling security to the cloud data is a crucial and demanding task. In both the commercial and academic world, the…
Abstract
Purpose
In the cloud-computing environment, privacy preservation and enabling security to the cloud data is a crucial and demanding task. In both the commercial and academic world, the privacy of important and sensitive data needs to be safeguarded from unauthorized users to improve its security. Therefore, several key generations, encryption and decryption algorithms are developed for data privacy preservation in the cloud environment. Still, the outsourced data remains with the problems like minimum data security, time consumption and increased computational complexity. The purpose of this research study is to develop an effective cryptosystem algorithm to secure the outsourced data with minimum computational complexity.
Design/methodology/approach
A new cryptosystem algorithm is proposed in this paper to address the above-mentioned concerns. The introduced cryptosystem algorithm has combined the ElGamal algorithm and hyperchaotic sequence, which effectively encrypts the outsourced data and diminishes the computational complexity of the system.
Findings
In the resulting section, the proposed improved ElGamal cryptosystem (IEC) algorithm performance is validated using the performance metrics like encryption time, execution time, decryption time and key generation comparison time. The IEC algorithm approximately reduced 0.08–1.786 ms of encryption and decryption time compared to the existing model: secure data deletion and verification.
Originality/value
The IEC algorithm significantly enhances the data security in cloud environments by increasing the power of key pairs. In this manuscript, the conventional ElGamal algorithm is integrated with the pseudorandom sequences for a pseudorandom key generation for improving the outsourced cloud data security.
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Outsourcing emerged as a popular operational strategy in the 1990s and most of current literature was established in the same time. However, the result of outsourcing is still…
Abstract
Purpose
Outsourcing emerged as a popular operational strategy in the 1990s and most of current literature was established in the same time. However, the result of outsourcing is still vague. The purpose of this article is to point out gaps in the current literature and examine the link between outsourcing implementation and firms' performance metrics by analysing hard data.
Design/methodology/approach
In this research, current outsourcing research (from 1990 to 2003) methodologies are grouped by five categories: case study, survey, conceptual framework, mathematical modeling, and financial data analyses; research scope is identified by three areas: outsourcing determinant, outsourcing process, and outsourcing result.
Findings
This article figures out three main gaps in the current literature: lack of objective metrics for outsourcing results evaluation, lack of research on the relationship between outsourcing implementation and firms' value, and lack of research on the outsourcing contract itself.
Research limitations/implications
If research is reported on in the paper this section must be completed and should include suggestions for future research and any identified limitations in the research process.
Originality/value
Based on the literature review, the author provides the roadmap of future research on outsourcing results. To our best knowledge, this is the first comprehensive literature review which informs the major gaps and future research opportunities in outsourcing study.
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Guido Nassimbeni, Marco Sartor and Daiana Dus
Service outsourcing/offshoring represents an increasing phenomenon. Several factors (e.g. cost reduction, flexibility, access to new technologies and skills, access to new…
Abstract
Purpose
Service outsourcing/offshoring represents an increasing phenomenon. Several factors (e.g. cost reduction, flexibility, access to new technologies and skills, access to new markets, focus on core activities) motivate the location of (IT or business) processes abroad and/or out of the companies' boundaries. This choice determines also relevant risks. Knowledge and data protection constitutes one of the most relevant issues in service outsourcing/offshoring because it can strongly affect the success of these projects. The purpose of this paper is to propose an assessment framework that highlights the main risks of offshoring and outsourcing projects.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on the model developed by Monczka et al. (2005), this work proposes a FMEA assessment framework that highlights the main risks of offshoring and outsourcing projects, their causes, effects and some possible (preventing/correcting) actions. The proposed framework has been implemented and tested in a multinational company for a long time involved in service offshoring/outsourcing projects.
Findings
Adopting a failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) approach, the study describes the main possible failures, their causes, effects and possible (preventive and corrective) actions, along all of the phases of typical outsourcing/offshoring projects.
Originality/value
The paper develops an assessment framework able to identify the security risk profile of companies engaged in outsourcing/offshoring projects by considering the technical, legal and managerial aspects jointly; and detecting the causes of possible security failures and the related preventive and corrective actions.
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Payam Hanafizadeh and Ahad Zare Ravasan
A multitude of factors influence the information technology outsourcing (ITO) decision. Organizations must systematically evaluate these factors prior to making the ITO decision…
Abstract
Purpose
A multitude of factors influence the information technology outsourcing (ITO) decision. Organizations must systematically evaluate these factors prior to making the ITO decision. The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth analysis toward understanding the critical factors in affecting ITO decision in the context of e-banking services.
Design/methodology/approach
The effect of technological, organizational, and environmental attributes on e-banking services outsourcing decision were investigated in this paper. The study was carried out using the quantitative research methodology based on a survey of 23 banks. The partial least squares technique was utilized as the method of data analysis.
Findings
The results of the data analysis illustrated that nine out of 11 assumed factors (i.e. perceived complexity, perceived cost, service observability to the client, cultural fit between client and supplier, perceived loss of organizational knowledge, prior outsourcing experience, external pressure, market volatility, and suppliers’ power) influence the outsourcing decision of e-banking services. The findings also confirmed that the nature of the service and client IT capabilities did not exert any influence on the outsourcing decision.
Originality/value
The study is among the first kind of ITO decision research which empirically investigates the effect of service observability, cultural fit, perceived loss of organizational knowledge, external pressure, market volatility, and suppliers’ power amongst other factors on the ITO decision. The findings from this study provide insights for the banks and service providers to better understand the factors affecting the outsourcing decisions of e-banking services in contexts of less developed countries. Implications based on a specific situation of the Iranian banking sector is also proposed.
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Delshad Hoseini and Mohsen Shafiei Nikabadi
The purpose of this study is to achieve the dynamic model of outsourcing success factors in project-based companies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to achieve the dynamic model of outsourcing success factors in project-based companies.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is descriptive-survey in terms of method and practical in terms of purpose. To achieve the dynamic model of outsourcing success, 1,000 outsourcing articles published in high-status journals from 2017 to 2019 were first text-mining. Then, using the clustering technique, the factors affecting the success of outsourcing were obtained. To achieve the key variables, the variables obtained by interpretive structural modeling (ISM) were then leveled. Then, the strategic options development and analysis (SODA) technique has been used to achieve a consensus and coordination on factors relationships. Finally, the dynamic model of outsourcing success in GHODRAT CONTROL PARS Company has been modeled and implemented.
Findings
In total, five clusters and nine factors were extracted (strategy, management, performance, market, R&D, supplier, product, organizational data and outsourcing findings). In central and domain analysis, two factors, “Strategy” and “R and D,” were recognized as factors that have the most interaction and centrality. The result of the dynamic model indicate that the organization will significantly reduce the construction time of the power plant by improving the “R and D” factor.
Originality/value
In this study, various techniques have been combined. Therefore, one of the aspects of innovation in the present study is the combination of methods that have not been used earlier. The second aspect of this study’s innovation is using SODA technique to design the dynamic model of outsourcing success factors. Given that the scope of this study is the component affecting the success of outsourcing, so extensive research has been conducted in the field of articles worked in the field of outsourcing to get a comprehensive view of the components affecting the success of outsourcing, which has not been reviewed in other articles. In this study, in addition to identifying the effective factors, their identified and also how these variables affect the successful performance of outsourcing in the form of a dynamic model, and then analyzed.
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Ming‐Kuen Chen and Shih‐Ching Wang
Over the past decade, many small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises have incurred dramatic losses due to major disasters, causing loss of their business information systems and…
Abstract
Purpose
Over the past decade, many small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises have incurred dramatic losses due to major disasters, causing loss of their business information systems and transaction data, so, they have started to outsource their information operations to data centers (DCs), in order to monitor critical business data operations. The purpose of this paper is to propose a dual‐sided business data integrity policy framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a review of the available literature, case studies, and in‐depth interviews with top CEOs and experts in the field, a fuzzy Delphi method is proposed in two frameworks. In addition, a risk evaluation rule is derived by applying Bayesian decision analysis to mitigate the risk and lower the cost in their outsourcing policy; and Delphi method is used to extract 11 DC service quality evaluation indicators and also use these indicators to conduct a benchmark in Taiwan. Furthermore, the proposed framework is applied to figure out critical service advantages as well as suggestions for the DC involved in the benchmark.
Findings
The results of framework point out that enterprises should monitor the four operation elements (facility and infrastructure, server system management, information security management, and disaster recovery (DR) mechanism) to ensure and improve their data integrity; and DC firms need to build robust facilities and services in the five operation elements (customizability, serviceability, information technology infrastructure, security management, and knowledge intensity).
Originality/value
This paper uses a hybrid Delphi‐Bayesian method to propose a new framework, which is adequately integrated with the consensus of experts and business decision makers; higher professionalism and content validity are achieved. Enterprises can use these indicators to evaluate the service quality of DCs among DC firms.
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