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The purpose of this paper is to understand the roles various drivers such as cost, strategy and risk play when business process outsourcing/information technology enabled services (BPO/ITES) firms in India outsource their information technology (IT) functions to third-party vendors. If all key drivers associated with IT outsourcing were understood, and such knowledge of those variables was incorporated into the reasons for outsourcing, there would be a greater probability of a successful outcome.

A “hybrid” (quantitative and qualitative) research methodology was used to gain insight into the IT-outsourcing paradigm by BPO/ITES firms in India. A structured questionnaire related to IT-outsourcing activities conducted from 1999 to 2010 was distributed to nine firms. The resulting data were then analyzed. In addition, two Indian BPO/ITES firms that had outsourced their IT to a third-party vendor to cut cost generously granted in-depth information into their IT-outsourcing paradigm and life cycle.

IT outsourcing is perhaps more complicated than other types of outsourcing. Focussing purely on cost is very risky. Practitioners need to take all three drivers – cost, strategy and risk into consideration. Any degradation of services or responsibilities due to IT outsourcing would mean a very unhappy client or even loss of business.

BPO/ITES firms in India tend to focus only on cost reduction from IT outsourcing without taking into consideration other equally important drivers such as strategy and risk. This paper counsels a holistic approach toward IT outsourcing for a successful outcome. In addition, an IT-outsourcing framework and guide is proposed for practitioners.

The purpose of this study is to empirically quantify the factors that are perceived to drive or inhibit performance of information technology (IT) outsourced employees from a range of information technology outsourcing (ITO) stakeholders in South Africa.

The first phase was a qualitative study on 19 stakeholders focussed on the development of the constructs. The second phase was quantitative, with a sample of 116 ITO stakeholders of the largest IT company in South Africa.

The study revealed that the ITO stakeholders had misaligned perceptions on inhibitors and somewhat congruent perceptions with regards to drivers of performance. Managers and poor performers’ perceptions of inhibiting factors of performance were significantly different. The empirical evidence showed that the key drivers of performance were intrinsic factors and leadership, whilst the inhibiting factors were mainly related to poor leadership.

The major limitation was that the population was represented by one large organisation in the South African IT industry and its clients, thereby excluding the rest of the IT industry participants, specifically the medium and small IT companies. The quota sample resulted in a non-probability study, and thus, the results of this study may not necessarily be generalised to other populations. This study’s findings on differences between good and poor performers must be investigated in other industries.

For outsourced employees to perform optimally, some key intrinsic factors must be fulfilled. Passion and pride, aligned to a meaningful job role, will unleash outstanding performance. Organisations need to ensure that there is regular feedback to managers on their performance and subsequent leadership development. Alignment of managers and poor performers’ perceptions on drivers and inhibitors could improve performance.

These findings demonstrate the large gap in perceptions about the key drivers and inhibiters of performance.

The study reveals that top performers tend to have higher order and intrinsic motivators, compared to poor performers, who have a mixture of extrinsic and intrinsic needs, and managers have a misaligned expectation of extrinsic motivators.

Outsourcing is recognized as one of the critical factors for efficient execution of pharmaceutical supply chain management (PSCM), and many pharmaceutical companies engage in international outsourcing of services (IOS) to survive in global highly competitive business. Since the key success factors for both domestic & international alliances are partnership characteristics and strategic fit management, but there is no empirical research on this issue in Thai pharmaceutical partnership offshore outsourcing. Therefore, this survey of Thai and foreign companies, both contract providers (CPs) and contract manufacturers (CMs), seeks to indicate significant relationships among both outsourcing strategic fit and partnership types, including outsourcing performance outcome. This research is two-fold. First, the partnership types (Type I, II, & III), the strategic fit types (low fit, moderate fit, and good fit), and their correlations are analyzed. And second, their outsourcing performance (company revenues and growth rates) are presented. The results showed that the most of the Thai pharmaceutical outsourcing manufacturing are classified as the partnership Type II, as well as the moderate strategic fit, and strongly support the relationship between the two models. Both of the companies’ revenue and growth rate could predict the companies’ performances outcome for each of partnership and strategic fit types. However, it is not necessary that the most integrative type of partnership, Type III, will be always the best, because it depends also on the strategic fit between each pair of partners as well.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct empirical investigation of value co-creation phenomena in IT services outsourcing. This survey based research enabled to identify antecedents of value co-creation and their impact on value outcomes.

This empirical study identifies 25 drivers of value co-creation in IT outsourcing services. These drivers were identified from reported literature and by studying IT project reports. The data were collected from client and supplier organizations followed by verification of the drivers (using PCA and CFA methodologies) that contribute significantly to value co-creation in the IT services outsourcing domain. Furthermore, using SEM and linear regression, the authors have verified the strength of their relationships with value co-creation.

This research is subjected to exploratory factor analysis, which resulted in six antecedents of value co-creation in IT services outsourcing. These antecedents include alliance relationship, strategic intent, service actualization, intrapreneurship, collective capabilities, and resource management. The alliance relationship, strategic intent, service actualization, and intrapreneurship are found to be significant for value co-creation. While collective capabilities as a standalone was not significant, the relationship of collective capabilities to value co-creation has achieved significance under the influence of alliance relationship, strategic intent, and other antecedents – when tested and hypothesized through the SEM path model.

The research has the following limitations. The antecedents identified are contextual. The potential illustrative, but not exhaustive reasons, for the change of the context may be due to contract duration, age of the project, relationship maturity, expected value outcome from both the parties, etc. The drivers identified in this research are applicable only to IT services (IT and ITES outsourcing). They cannot be generalized to other B2B outsourcing relationship. The authors propose the conducting of separate research to identify the priorities of these antecedents for different types of outsourcing as well different types of value outcomes.

This study has added to the knowledge on value co-creation in IT services outsourcing relationships through empirical modeling. From the perspective practitioners of IT industry, this work brings rich information of what are the drivers to value co-creation and their significance on value outcomes in IT services outsourcing. It can provide guidelines to both clients and service providers of similar industry to assess their current practices for value co-creation and re-prioritize their activities and budgets based on the significance of value based benefits. Moreover, practitioners in the IT services industry can use these value drivers and understand the antecedents for value co-creation. As this work is from a dual perspective, both clients and suppliers can assess the applicability of these drivers and antecedents and adopt them to realize mutual value.

In the past, researchers have focussed on value after it was created and shared among the respective relationship partners, and very few emphasized the need for proactive identification of the antecedents of value co-creation. Researchers have emphasized on the need for an empirical approach, because most of the published studies are theoretical and conceptual in nature. Hence, the significant contribution of this empirical study is to validate the value co-creation drivers identified from literature and qualitative study (case studies) with IT industry practitioners (no. 256) across the globe and the relevance of antecedents to B2B IT services outsourcing body of knowledge.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

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.

This paper aims to explain how small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs) create information technology (IT) business value through blended IT outsourcing (ITO). The explanatory framework it proposes enables SMEs to replicate IT capability outcomes (i.e. enhance their economic, strategic and technological competences, namely, ITO success) by endorsing an ITO strategy catalyzed by IT vendor integration.

This study uses covariance-based structural equation modeling to test the proposed research model. Data are collected from 251 knowledge-intensive business SMEs located in Science and Technology Parks in Spain.

The results demonstrate empirically that SMEs can replicate IT capability benefits (i.e. enhance their non-IT competences) through blended ITO in which IT, conceptualized as a transversal supporting activity, is outsourced to an IT vendor while the value creation process remains with the buyer. The integration (i.e. process integration and information sharing) of an IT-proficient vendor catalyzes ITO success. More specifically, the results show that, although process integration is not directly related to competence enhancement, fosters information sharing, which directly facilitates ITO success. The results also show that IT vendor proficiency accounts for ex ante trust.

Managers should think of transformational ITO as a strategy to enhance firm competences. For blended ITO strategies to succeed, managers must have a comprehensive understanding of the business they run, as it is important to create conditions that foster inter-firm information sharing. To achieve these conditions, managers should take special care in selecting boundary spanners, who are the pivotal links in competence enhancement.

While most research focuses on ongoing trust (i.e. trust develops as ITO evolves), this study focuses on initial (i.e. ex ante) trust and analyzes IT vendor proficiency (expert, experienced and reputed) to examine trust as an antecedent of ITO. This study also draws on previous conceptualizations of vendor integration to develop and analyze a two-step integration model to explain how IT vendor integration (i.e. process integration and information sharing) catalyzes enhancement of the buyer’s non-IT competences. This study focuses on SMEs, which are often neglected in ITO studies.

To explore the key factors that motivate organizations in China to outsource and the obstacles these companies are facing in comparison with the situation in Western developed countries.

A case study approach was adopted with primary data collected through in‐depth interviews with six companies in China and secondary data aggregated from company reports and documents. Research findings were analyzed within and across all case studies to identify key drivers and obstacles of outsourcing.

Economic factor is a strong motivation for outsourcing in China, of which cost reduction, cost saving, and capital investment reduction are the main concerns. Strategic considerations, such as the use of outsourcing to accelerate re‐engineering benefits, to focus on core competence, to increase flexibility, and to facilitate market penetration, are identified. Environmental factors like information technology (IT) development and capability of supplier can influence organizations' decisions to outsource. Meanwhile, companies in China have encountered obstacles and problems in the outsourcing process. They include the lack of capable service providers, loss of control, poor transportation and IT infrastructure, presence of local protection regulations, and lack of overall post‐outsourcing measurement.

This paper presents a systematic exploration of the drivers and the obstacles of outsourcing in China and provides a framework that may guide business organizations to make better outsourcing decisions. It may assist organizations to clearly define their expectations, develop strategic outsourcing plans, and make appropriate decisions to achieve outsourcing objectives.

This paper sets out to review the different types of outsourcing, its drivers and process, and to identify world‐class capabilities that host organisations can leverage.

This paper is primarily based on a review of literature.

Outsourcing helps the organisation to achieve higher levels of value creation for the final customer. Drivers of outsourcing emanate from organisational initiatives, improvement focus, financial and cost objectives, or growth objectives. A wide range of core and non‐core critical business processes are increasingly being outsourced covering a large spectrum of sectors and operations, enabling host organisations to gain access to world‐class capabilities.

This paper identifies critical drivers of outsourcing and the process by reviewing available literature in this area. In doing this an attempt is made to find answers to some fundamental questions. What are the main types and drivers of outsourcing? What are the different phases in the process of outsourcing? This paper discusses in detail the significant drivers and process of outsourcing; and the world‐class capabilities accessible by the host organisation. Case studies are used to illustrate these aspects further.

This paper aims to examine how Chinese apparel retailers manage their production outsourcing risks and why they elect to manage those risks in a particular manner.

The investigation used the case study approach to explore factors driving two Chinese apparel retailers operating in different market environments to manage their production outsourcing risks.

The selection of production outsourcing risk management strategies hinges on what apparel retailers view as the most important value their products provide to customers. Product values were linked to specific product characteristics as well as the market environment in which the apparel retailers operated. The retailer that regarded product quality as a key value driver was found to place emphasis on manufacturer selection and use of a formal contract for process control. The retailer that viewed newness and variety as a value driver opted to cultivate a strong, committed business relationship based on Guanxi to achieve speed‐to‐market.

As a case study research, the findings of this study have their limitations in generalisability. Given that one of the retailers did not invoke Guanxi to cultivate a long‐term business relationship with its outsourced manufacturers, the role of Guanxi in outsourcing risk management in China deserves further exploration, as businesses in China become more globalised.

This study grounds mainstream outsourcing strategy literature on operational practice through case studies. It highlights the influence of both product characteristics and market environment in dictating the choice of outsourcing risk management strategies in apparel manufacturing.

The study views outsourcing risk management from the perspective of minimizing outsourcing failures, rather than achieving outsourcing success. It reveals that risk management behavior of apparel retailers was linked to the notion of value protection, which varied according to what they considered as their principal product value drivers.