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Both private and public sector organizations continue to be challenged by the need to determine and assess the applicability and viability of information technology (IT) advances to their situations. Traditionally, IT has not been perceived as a major contributing factor in developing and supporting the strategic direction of organizations. Yet the many diverse advances in IT can present both positive and negative influences on an organization especially in a rapidly changing global environment. Some organizations do not conduct formal strategic planning due to a perception that the effort will be outdated before it is completed. Others may undertake the planning process but fail to continue to implementation. Regardless of whether there is formal, informal, or non-existent strategic planning, the importance of assessing relevant IT advances is seldom considered as a critical factor to be integrated into an organization’s long-term direction.

This chapter utilizes both primary research and case studies to propose that IT advances need to be appropriately incorporated into an organization’s strategic direction. Supporting rationale will be presented for a variety of private and public sector entities and situations. Some IT advances that are addressed include the following:

• Stakeholder involvement in assessing appropriate IT advances

• Technology strategy planning for mergers and acquisitions

• Mobile device integration in future organizational planning

• IT outsourcing vs. insourcing implications

Stakeholder involvement in assessing appropriate IT advances

Technology strategy planning for mergers and acquisitions

Mobile device integration in future organizational planning

IT outsourcing vs. insourcing implications

The Web 3.0 has been hugely enabled by smartphones and new generation mobile applications. With the growing adoption of smartphones, the use of mobile applications has grown exponentially and so has the development of mobile applications. This study is an attempt to understand the issues and challenges faced in the mobile applications domain using discussions made on Twitter based on mining of user generated content.

The study uses 89,908 unique tweets to understand the nature of the discussions. These tweets are analyzed using descriptive, content and network analysis. Further using transaction cost economics, the findings are reviewed to develop practice insights about the ecosystem.

Findings indicate that the discussions are mostly skewed toward a positive polarity and positive user experiences. The tweeters are predominantly application developers who are interacting more with marketers and less with individual users.

Most of these applications are for individual use (B2C) and not for enterprise usage. There are very few individual users who contribute to these discussions. The predominant users are application reviewers or bloggers of review websites who use the recently developed applications and discuss their thoughts on the same.

The results may be useful in varied domains which are planning to expand their reach to a larger audience using mobile applications and for marketers who primarily focus on promotional content.

The domain of mobile applications on social media is still restricted to promotions and digital marketing and may solely be used for the purpose of link building by application developers. As such, the discussions could provide inputs towards mobile phone manufacturers and ecosystem providers on what are the real issues these communities are facing while developing these applications.

The study uses mixed research methodology for mining experiences in the domain of mobile application developers using social media analytics and transaction cost economics. The discussion on the findings provides inputs for policy-making and possible intervention areas.

A significant feature of business management in the 1990s has been the practice of outsourcing. Firms and public sector bodies have reconsidered where the boundary of their organisation should be set, and passed to third parties responsibility for many business activities. However, many firms have been disappointed with the results they have achieved from outsourcing, not least when it has concerned high profile functions such as information technology. Part of the reason for this disappointment, it is argued, lies in the methodologies (or lack of them) which have been employed by managers. Very few have taken into account the main risks of the practice or identified the required safeguards. This article seeks to address these shortcomings by presenting a model for effective risk management. The article also provides a case study – outsourcing at Hewlett‐Packard – which shows what can be achieved if managers use the right criteria for their decisions.

This research analyzes the development of logistics outsourcing market in two countries, Estonia and Finland, with different paths as members of the single European market. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the two markets have become more similar or whether their logistics costs and logistics markets have developed differently over time.

The development of the logistics market is addressed through two survey-based variables. Logistics costs are used to measure the size of the logistics market, whereas logistics outsourcing is analyzed to measure the development phase as well as the market potential for logistics service provision.

Estonian logistics outsourcing market was found to be underdeveloped and small compared to the Finnish market. At the same time, the logistics costs of Finnish companies are high and rising, whereas the costs of Estonian firms are declining.

The results imply that the level of outsourcing might explain the visibility of logistics costs, which should be taken into account when making estimates on logistics costs both at the firm as well as on country level.

Logistics sector is an important source of national competitiveness and employment. This research identifies subareas for the two countries on how to develop competitiveness through the logistics market.

This research provides a unique method to estimate the size of logistics outsourcing market in these two countries. It also represents as one of the rare works to provide multiyear comparison between countries in logistics costs.

This paper seeks to support and extend other scholars’ examinations of the evolution of technological modularity, vertical specialization and the concepts of the drivers of change in the basis of competition through an analysis of the evolution of the mobile phone industry.

A two‐year research project was undertaken and in‐depth interviews took place with managers at companies that were responsible for developing the value chain approaches of their firms. Companies were identified from the existing body of literature, observation and personal contact. Additionally, data were collected from developing case studies.

The paper finds that the mobile phone industry value chain is in the process of deconstructing towards more horizontally stratified structures for some device segments. But, unlike the PC industry, an industry which many analysts suggest provides a precedent for likely evolution of the mobile phone value chain, this trend will not be uniform or consistent across different product types. This will require mobile phone manufacturers to adapt their organizational structures and value chain approaches accordingly, and to rethink the basis for future competitive advantage.

As the research is based on interviews with a limited number of firms within the extended mobile handset industry value chain, it cannot be suggested that the impact of trends identified has equal impact for all firms.

Mobile handset vendors should learn from the PC industry and make sure that their future strategies are not made simply on the basis of cost optimization or speed to market.

The paper fulfils an identified need to understand how industry structures are evolving in one of the most dynamic sectors in the world.

Following positive results of Lean implementation in manufacturing environments, Lean has become an emerging philosophy for clients and suppliers of information technology (IT) services. However, how to implement Lean in IT outsourcing relationships has been addressed sparsely in academic literature. The purpose of this paper is to investigate critical success factors (CSFs) for implementing Lean in IT outsourcing relationships. Key findings, implications and avenues for future research are discussed.

Six IT outsourcing relationships were qualitatively investigated by means of 36 semi-structured interviews. CSFs were identified based on interview transcription analyses, selection techniques and expert reviews.

In total, 16 CSFs for Lean implementation in IT outsourcing relationships are identified and described.

The CSFs presented in this paper indicate key areas that deserve managerial attention to steer Lean implementation efforts in IT outsourcing relationships in a favorable direction.

This study is the first to describe the phenomenon of “Lean IT outsourcing” and provides researchers and practitioners with a foundation to further examine Lean implementation in IT outsourcing relationships.

Service firms manage variability using both demand‐side tactics (levelling customer demand), and supply‐side tactics (increasing available capacity). One popular way of increasing available capacity is the outsourcing of non‐core services. This article uses a case study to examine the impact of an outsourced non‐core service on a hospital’s overall service system. Findings show that the outsourced service provides access to more sophisticated technology, increases in‐house capacity and saves capital expenditure. However, the outsourcing also increases the scheduling problems that the hospital faces. These problems are largely due to communication delays from the involvement of more than one organisation. These delays decrease the response time available to match changes in demand for the outsourced service. Given the obvious benefits of such outsourcing, the article concludes that management should pay close attention to the communication pathways between organisations, in order to minimise the end effects identified in this study.

This paper aims to analyze recent debates about outsourcing in the USA, using examples from IT sector, especially in the context of India.

The paper is a critical commentary and uses methods based in rhetorical criticism.

The author argues that to fully understand the outsourcing issue, it has to be considered a symptomatic discourse rather than a causative one. Specifically, it is argued that the outsourcing debate in the context of IT work evidences class issues in as much as it involves white collar visibility. Moreover, the debate is also symptomatic of ethnic tensions in the form of ethnic scapegoating. Some implications of the debate are discussed.

The paper is of value to those interested in debates about outsourcing, and highlights the importance of a communication‐oriented perspective.

Managing attrition is a major challenge for outsourcing vendors. Literature on management control in offshore outsourcing is dominated by the formal approaches to control design, which do not adequately consider the influence of contextual factors. This article aims to adopt the lens of institutional theory, and use empirical data gathered from case studies in both the UK and India to improve the understanding of the institutional logics that shape the control of attrition.

This article draws on in‐depth qualitative research undertaken with directors and senior managers in client and vendor firms engaged in outsourcing relationships that span both corporate and national boundaries. Drawing on empirical data from the UK and India, the interplay between the management control of attrition and contextual factors is analysed, and the practices adopted to manage these contextual factors are also identified and discussed.

The analysis presents relevant aspects of the regulative, normative and cognitive institutions inhabited by vendor firms and the challenges such aspects present for managing attrition. The dynamics of institutions and control are discussed in the area of attrition, and the interplay between institutions and control is outlined. The regulative, normative and cognitive institutions inhabited by vendor firms contrast markedly to that of the client in relation to social and legal rules, norms and practices.

The paper develops a theoretical basis for linking control and context in offshore outsourcing, drawing on the work of Scott in institutional theory, and Friedland and Alford, in institutional logics. This paper offers an alternative conceptualisation of control in attrition based upon rationalistic modelling through institutional logics.

This paper offers key implications for research, in improving the understanding of contextual factors and management control in global outsourcing relationships. Both clients and vendors in offshore outsourcing need to be aware of the influence of contextual factors when managing attrition.

The interplay of institutional logics and implications on the control of attrition provides an interesting approach to understanding how firms manage attrition in offshore outsourcing.

This chapter describes development and main achievements of the Belarusian IT sector which is today considered by experts to be the most promising and progressive part of the national economy. Special attention of the analysis is given to the governmental policy to stimulate information and communication technology sector growth through special legal regulations (e.g., High-Tech Park as favorable business environment for IT business since 2005) and efforts to promote transition of Belarus to the “IT country” through number of national programs and legislative instruments, including the President's Decree on Digital Economy Development (2017). Main scenarios of the Belarusian IT sector future development are proposed and analyzed, including risks and opportunities on such four paths as being the global IT development outsourcing provider; exponentially growing own software product companies; becoming the regional or even global cryptocurrency hub; integrating IT in all parts of the domestic economy in order to build Industry 4.0 and digital society.