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Presents a practical and systematic overview of some key IT outsourcing contractual issues, exploring and highlighting management implications where appropriate. Discusses issues such as service level, transfer of assets, staffing, pricing and payment, warranty and liability, dispute resolution mechanism, termination, intellectual property matters, and information security. Gives practical advice on pre‐contractual negotiation and post‐contractual management. By discussing these issues systematically from a management and practical perspective, contributes to bridging the gap between theory and practice and seeks to offer useful information to management considering IT outsourcing.

Notes that outsourcing is just one of the means by which the boundary of the firm can be adjusted. Considers various other means such as conglomeration and horizontal and vertical integration. Focuses on outsourcing and its place in this bigger picture and discusses the history of outsourcing. Outlines concerns for managers and gives case examples from Rank Zerox and BP.

While strategic outsourcing decisions are crafted by senior executives, they are executed by middle managers and staff who may not share the vision or enthusiasm of their senior leadership team. The purpose of this paper is to provide a deep understanding of the effects of outsourcing on one of those stakeholder groups – the client project managers – responsible for the implementation of outsourcing strategies, and to identify practices to better empower and enable them.

Interviews with 67 client project managers in 25 organizations responsible for integrating suppliers into project teams.

Client project managers report 27 effects of outsourcing on their roles, including six positive effects and 21 negative effects.

Senior executives who implemented the following practices had more success with their outsourcing decisions: provide enough resources to implement the sourcing strategy, be willing to change internal work practices, build social capital with key supplier executives and seek independent assessment of sourcing strategy effectiveness.

The paper presents an original framework to categorize the effects of outsourcing on client project managers. The framework addresses six areas of concern: organizational support, project planning, knowledge transfer, process standards, managing work and managing people. The paper identifies four practices senior executives use to align and empower their employees to deliver the expected business benefits from strategic outsourcing decisions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To provide a framework for risk assessment of offshore IT outsourcing.

Based on review of recent literature, this paper has identified major risk categories of offshore IT outsourcing, discussed various risk factors within each category, and provided a general framework for the study of risk factors in this area.

Provides a general framework and a check‐list of the major risk factors related to offshore IT outsourcing.

Suggests further research studies in three specific directions: case‐based studies; country and region risk analysis; and strategic alliance.

Provides a very helpful guideline for practitioners in assessing various risks involved in offshore IT outsourcing.

The paper provides a synthesis and analysis of the viewpoints as reflected in the literature on various dimensions of the risks associated with offshore IT outsourcing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of top corporate financial executives on the success of implementation of systems outsourcing and offshore outsourcing, as well as the variables associated with success in these areas.

An analysis of secondary data obtained from the Financial Executives International comprehensive survey‐based research on technology issues for financial executives. Regression analysis and other statistical methods are used.

The study examined usage of outsourcing and offshore outsourcing from the top financial executive's perspective. Only 30 percent of the surveyed companies outsourced IT and only 25 percent engaged in offshore outsourcing IT. Size of the company did significantly influence usage. The major motivators behind the decision to pursue outsourcing were the views that IT is not a core competency and that significant cost reduction was possible. The experiences of the organizations surveyed reflect a general satisfaction with outsourcing and offshore outsourcing. But finally, it was found that while overall use of outsourcing did correlate with higher IT returns, offshore outsourcing did not correlate with higher IT return to the organization at traditional significance levels.

The study can be used as a basis for further exploration on outsourcing and offshore outsourcing success, influencing variables, and motivators.

The findings can be used to guide management teams in outsourcing and offshore outsourcing decisions to maximize returns to their organizations.

Despite many studies that examine success from the theoretical and IT perspectives, this paper provides a large sample set, which empirically reviews major corporations' top financial executives' experiences with outsourcing and offshore outsourcing. In addition, it begins to explore the variables influencing overall outsourcing and offshore outsourcing success perception. Major contributions are the extent of the detail, the large dataset analysis, and the CFO rather than CIO perspective.

Explores the supply‐side of the global IT outsourcing marketplace. Argues that companies should seek to understand the strategic positioning of IT suppliers. In recent years, the large IT service providers have made inroads into new vertical markets from health care to e‐commerce. They have also expanded their service offerings to include business process outsourcing (BPO), customer relationship management (CRM) and e‐business. Explores some of these changes and presents a conceptual framework which captures some of the dynamic changes in the software and computing services industry. These involve mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and partnering.

This paper seeks to provide taxonomy and assessment methodologies for executives of global conglomerates with a selection of variables which can help them evaluate outsourcing decisions.

A range of established theories, which addressed outsourcing decisions, are identified. The major determinants of global outsourcing were then formulated into an integrated model. Each of the variables identified was validated using multiple theories. Finally, a weighted score index was used to demonstrate how the variables can be used to evaluate outsourcing decisions.

It provides an overview of outsourcing theories about the variety of major reasons and their associated determinants as well as attributes that are relevant to decision‐makers. It showed that the individual theories can be integrated into a global taxonomy. This taxonomy can be assessed using a weighted‐index because the inputs and computation processes contain realistic qualitative and quantitative information.

It is an assessment methodology that requires input and judgment from a variety of experts. Persons having such expertise may be fairly costly and difficult to find.

A very simple, yet comprehensive, and useful taxonomy for executives making outsourcing decisions. The assessment index is a proven methodology that is used by business consultants for a variety of related applications involving decision choices.

This paper fulfills the need for a more comprehensive view and a systematic approach to the assessment of outsourcing decisions. The index of attributes identified and the evaluation technique proposed are a practical approach.

In recent years a large number of studies have appeared on information systems (IS)/information technology (IT) outsourcing related issues but scattered in a number of distantly related publishing outlets which may hamper the use of such published resources and repetition of research conducted by various researchers. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a systematic survey of the literature pertaining to research on IS/IT outsourcing.

The research aim was accomplished by extracting information on a number of relevant variables by conducting a review of 315 articles on IS/IT outsourcing published between 1992 and 2008.

The analysis is presented by listing and illustrating subject category, journals, year of publications and country, frequently published authors, productive institutions, the trend of collaborative nature (co‐author analysis) of research, the impact/influence of published research; topics/research issues and utilised methods, and the challenges and limitations of existing research.

Results of this research may have implications for both private and public sector organizations interested in outsourcing IS/IT services and applications, and various stakeholders of academic publishing (namely, researchers, journal editors, reviewers and universities) research on IS/IT outsourcing.

The primary value of this paper lies in extending the understanding of evolution and patterns of outsourcing research.

Companies are increasingly changing their IT sourcing arrangements. Such changes often involve significant costs. The purpose of this paper is to explore and explain IT sourcing as a dynamic organizational phenomenon and to gain a deeper understanding of the drivers and outcomes of IT sourcing changes at organizational level.

A qualitative approach with interpretive analysis of historical data. Data are collected from companies through interviews and review of public documents where available.

The underlying tendencies of change are either primarily associated with institutional processes, or with what we term “IT‐driven” considerations. The perceived success of IT outsourcing in companies is dependent on these underlying tendencies.

This is an exploratory study and the findings on the underlying tendencies in change will be helpful in further theory development and research on IT outsourcing changes.

Knowledge coming from such research could help companies make more effective decisions about IT sourcing changes and set realistic expectations.

The dynamic perspective taken in this paper is different from the perspectives taken in earlier research where the researchers took cross‐sectional views of IT outsourcing arrangements. This paper shows the importance of re‐examining the reasons for change using the more encompassing concept of orientation.