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The purpose of this paper is to suggest a framework that would guide the practicing manager to decide the degree of information systems (IS) outsourcing.

The proposed framework has been derived from the findings of a previous empirical study and qualitative inputs. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is then used to apply the framework. The framework is finally validated in three India‐based banks.

The proposed framework helps in creating a strategic alignment between the business strategy and information system strategy. The application of the framework shows the preference of managers towards high IS outsourcing. Strategic alignment and medium term impact emerge the important factors in IS outsourcing. The validity of the framework is proved in three banks.

The validation exercise has been done on a small sample due to resources constraints and a study involving a larger sample is desired. Further, it is advised to review the framework on regular intervals and make suitable changes in decision factors.

The framework is helpful to managers in identifying the critical factors which can act as useful inputs in taking informed decisions on the degree of IS outsourcing.

The paper fills some of the gaps in IS outsourcing by suggesting a practice‐ oriented framework that guides the decision maker to undertake a systematic and structured approach in arriving at an outsourcing decision. The framework has evolved from the practices of banks in India for which there does not exist any similar research.

Over the last number of years, outsourcing has become an important issue for many organisations. The potential for outsourcing has moved from peripheral activities such as cleaning and catering to critical activities such as design and manufacturing. However, there is evidence to suggest that organisations are not achieving the desired benefits from outsourcing. Outsourcing decisions are rarely taken within a thoroughly strategic perspective with many firms adopting a short‐term perspective and being motivated primarily by the search for short‐term cost reductions. The aim is to illustrate that outsourcing should be carried out from a strategic perspective and integrated into the overall strategy of the organisation by proposing an outsourcing framework. The framework attempts to overcome some of the problems associated with outsourcing by integrating a number of key strands related to outsourcing including a value chain perspective, core competency thinking and supply base influences into the decision‐making process.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of a number of performance management techniques in the outsourcing process, in a business services context.

Using a structured outsourcing framework, performance management techniques are applied in a financial services organisation over a three‐year period. A case study approach is employed to undertake the research, which involved the research team engaging directly with the organisation throughout the outsourcing process.

Applying performance management techniques in the outsourcing process is challenging in a number of areas including comparison difficulties, incomplete information and inadequate performance management systems. However, benchmarking and cost analysis are useful mechanisms for improving performance, and reducing costs via internal process redesign or outsourcing. Performance management techniques can be employed to remove inefficiencies from processes both prior to outsourcing and during the outsourcing relationship.

There are a number of limitations of the research approach including gaining full participation from the company, having access to all relevant company information and time constraints.

The research findings highlight the implications of applying performance management techniques in a practical outsourcing setting. As well as identifying the challenges, the research highlights the value of integrating critical success factors, cost analysis, benchmarking and other performance management techniques into the outsourcing process.

There are few studies in the literature of applying performance management techniques in the outsourcing process at an operation's level. The findings have identified the challenges and benefits of performance management techniques in the outsourcing process. The findings have highlighted the importance of operations management concepts such as performance management, operations strategy, business improvement and process re‐design to services outsourcing, and the need for further research in this area by operations management scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a dynamic outsourcing framework for making and implementing process outsourcing decisions in a rapidly changing environment.

The theoretical framework incorporates three major concepts/techniques: the order winner concept to identify strategic level competitive priorities, the modularization concept to reconfigure enterprise organizational structure, and the analytical hierarchy process technique for linking critical demand attributes with process modules at the operational level.

The study presents a dynamic outsourcing approach through organizational modularization and shows when and how core and non‐core activities can be outsourced in a fast changing market.

The complexities of the framework will need facilitation and supports on issues such as organizational modularity, multi‐goal optimization, and empirical validation.

This paper offers practical insights and clarifies common confusions associated with strategic outsourcing.

The paper tries to fill the gap between the existing outsourcing literature and the practical need for choosing specific outsourcing activities at the operational level. The dynamic framework creates a foundation for continuous process improvement on a cyclic basis.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for prototyping outsourcing.

This study provides an up‐to‐date literature review and an in‐depth case study.

This study identifies three factors (i.e. the degree of the prototyping to core competence, prototyping complexity, and supplier's capability of providing knowledge and speed for prototyping) and three types of risks (i.e. losing control over suppliers, dependency on suppliers, and supplier's lack of capabilities) for prototyping outsourcing decisions.

This paper provides guidelines for new product development managers in order to mitigate the risks associated with outsourcing and achieve effective prototyping.

This study provides a strategic outsourcing framework for prototyping.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and illustrate a theoretically grounded framework capable of strategic guidance in making sourcing decisions.

Based on literature review and secondary data from the US operation of 7‐Eleven, a large international retailer, this study develops and supports a framework for understanding and undertaking business process sourcing decisions. The framework considers internal core competencies, as well as the role of external actors in value creation, in analyzing sourcing decisions for business processes.

Case analysis reveals that a firm's successful sourcing decisions can be explained by resource based view (RBV) and value co‐creation theories. RBV is shown to provide an internal view of the firm considering its core competencies, while value co‐creation illuminates the external perspective considering the role of customers when making sourcing decisions. Further, these theories can be decomposed and simplified, thereby providing scholars with new theoretical insights for this phenomenon and practitioners with a decision‐making tool for undertaking sourcing decisions.

This paper explains in granular detail how effective outsourcing decisions can be made. It employs a rarely considered perspective by combining nascent literature from the value co‐creation stream with established beliefs about RBV core competencies to make three contributions. First, it shows how sourcing decisions can be explained not only by the RBV perspective but also by the value co‐creation view. Second, in considering the role of value co‐creation with the customer, it introduces the perspective of the customer as a decision‐making consideration for sourcing. Third, it provides practitioners with a sourcing decision‐making tool.

This paper aims to examine contracts in public jurisdictions to compare academic theories related to outsourcing risks and risk management strategies to current practice in order to extend and refine theory concerning what risk management strategies can, or should, be included in outsourcing contracts.

An automated content analysis tool is used to rigorously compare contract documents in two public jurisdictions to a comprehensive outsourcing risk framework from previous research.

The findings indicate that although IS outsourcing risk factors are widely acknowledged in the literature, they are not fully specified in the outsourcing contracts that are implemented in some public organizations. This research surfaces some of the differences in the techniques implemented through actual contracts to manage the risks inherent in IS outsourcing, including some strategies not previously identified in the literature. Also, not all risks need to be addressed in the contract to have a successful outsourcing engagement.

The improved framework for thinking about risk management strategies in the contracting process shown within the paper can provide important ideas and insights for managers contemplating or renewing outsourcing engagements.

This paper uses content analysis to rigorously compare academic theory to actual practice to extend theory. Specifically, it discovers several risk management strategies that have not been presented in previous research.

The decision to operate BPO-IT organisational model by a business process outsourcing (BPO) service provider has far reaching benefits. The purpose of this paper is to develop a service provider’s BPO-IT framework that provides in-house IT function (software) required to process client services.

The multi-case study adopted an exploratory sequential mixed method research approach. In the first instance, seven BPO service provider organisations were investigated in the qualitative phase and 156 in the quantitative phase, respectively.

The adoption of the developed framework indicates that it could reduce failures in BPO relationships through reduced turnaround time in processing client services, improved quality of service, reduced cost, improved client and provider’s competitiveness, and confidentiality of client operations. Outsourcing clients could lay the foundation for a successful relationship by adopting a selection process that could choose the right provider.

The paper reveals BPO-IT organisation’s operation towards in-house provision of software required to process client services. A research exploring BPO service providers from a top outsourcing destination like India could provide offshore outsourcing clients the information to move towards onshore outsourcing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Through the literature, the effect of macro-environment on onshore outsourcing decisions appears rather unexplored, despite empirical evidence. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap through an extension of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) (the main theory of domestic outsourcing).

This paper develops a framework based on a literature review. It applies this body of knowledge on a new question and provides detailed illustrations (with primary and secondary data).

This paper builds a theoretical framework, based on the concept of transition costs. This concept, created as a way to make the economizing approach more dynamic, highlights the influences of the macro-environment. This paper presents a clarification of transition costs. It formulates a theoretical proposition: the environment has an effect on outsourcing through the transition costs.

This framework deserves to be tested through an empirical study.

This framework enables domestic providers to take the environment and transition costs into account for the design and timing of outsourced service.

This framework enables to consider the importance of social conflicts and political measures on the domestic outsourcing decisions.

First, this paper addresses an unexplored question (the effect of macro-environment on onshore outsourcing decisions). Second, it refines an undertheorized TCE concept: the transition costs. Third, it proposes a new direction in the current debate of the evanishing explanatory power of the TCE on outsourcing (by extending this theory).