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Defines legitimation. Proposes six social factors or forces for analysing the current bases for legitimation in information systems development. Argues that if the directions of these forces shift, it could signal a major social change. Asserts that consideration of the concepts related to the six factors can help information systems researchers to sense emergent issues.

The authors’ contribution to the literature involves using expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT) to examine the impact of expectations on outsourcing success. This study hypothesizes that perceptions of outsourcing success are contingent on disconfirmation between clients’ expectations and the perceived performance of fundamental issues related to the outsourcing relationship.

To test the hypothesis, this study surveyed chief information officers, vice presidents and senior information systems managers to determine their perceptions of vendors. This study analyzed the data using structural equation modeling.

The findings demonstrate that the existing outsourcing success factors are more precisely depicted as multidimensional success factors that predict managerial perceptions of outsourcing success. This study uses a novel perspective to identify the multidimensional nature of the outsourcing success factors that might have remained latent without further analysis.

Using EDT, this study extends the understanding of outsourcing success as not merely composed of unidimensional factors but as a collection of multidimensional outsourcing success factors. This research demonstrates that not only do these success factors predict outsourcing success, but they can also be grouped together to provide a diversified, yet parsimonious view of how expectations relating to certain success factors influence a client’s perception of outsourcing success.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a philosophical framework in order to come to a life‐world oriented understanding of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for evaluating system success. To do so, according to Dooyeweerd's theory of aspects, a multi‐aspectual understanding is derived based on end‐user's everyday experience of the system.

Through a qualitative case study, data are gathered based on 17 semi‐structured interviews. The company within which this study was conducted is an Iranian manufacturer which fully implemented a SAP R/3 system about four years ago. In order to analyze text data, an interpretive text analysis is conducted.

According to the results, among all 15 aspects and from end users’ point of view, the qualifying aspects are analytical, pistic, economic and formative, which means that the other aspects are ignored or repressed throughout the organization. All these qualifying aspects include both positive and negative norms but for three of them (analytical, economic and formative) the positive norms are dominant. Regarding the pistic aspect, even though it includes strong positive norms, they are not dominant compared to negative norms. Synthesizing results show that according to “Meeting objectives”, “User satisfaction” and “Emancipation” as general norms, ERP success, in order to be completely realized, requires each general norm to be considered as a multi‐aspectual criterion.

First, the management team has to concentrate not only on economic and formative objectives but also on the other aspectual objectives which are more qualitative and intangible. Each aspectual objective requires its own specific methods and data to be measured, therefore the management team must provide supportive conditions so that multiple measurement systems are allowed to be implemented. Second, through new long‐term plans, budgets and training courses, already ignored aspects such as psychic, lingual, social, aesthetic, juridical and ethical must be more focused in order to bring to them more visibility and recognition throughout the organization. Third, In order to increase the positive norms for all aspects, holding periodical workshops and training courses is helpful. In addition, implementing reward systems can be a complementary action in order to improve positive norms.

The paper shows that evaluating ERP success according to end users’ point of view brings more visibility to some issues which are usually ignored or missed by quantitative or uni‐aspectual approaches. Furthermore, utilizing Dooyeweerd's framework as a life‐oriented philosophy for evaluating ERP success is a novel work, which may lead to a kind of development and enrichment in the ERP success literature.

The objective of this literature review is to provide a background and a synthesis of existing studies conducted on IT outsourcing. The IT outsourcing trend has become increasingly popular and heavily documented and studied in Europe and the USA. It is therefore appropriate and timely to consider the value and incidence of IT outsourcing in Australian organisations. The literature review deals with the impetus for outsourcing and factors contributing to its success. It covers two useful theoretical frameworks, transactional cost theory, and resource‐based theory that facilitate research into outsourcing.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the types of research published in the Association for Information Systems (AIS) basket of top journals.

This paper uses bibliographic analysis to analyze all the articles that were published in the AIS basket of top journals over a ten‐year period, from 1998 to 2007. Articles were classified based on their paradigmatic and methodological approach.

Although there is a common perception within the information systems (IS) research community that European IS research is mostly qualitative and interpretive, the bibliographic analysis reveals that the two European IS journals are not significantly different from their US counterparts. All six journals in the AIS basket are remarkably similar in terms of the types of research published.

This article is one of the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the types of research published within the AIS basket of top journals. It provides a picture of how the two European IS journals differ from their US counterparts.

How can action research be made more rigorous? We discuss in this paper action research, positivism and some major criticisms of action research by positivists. We then examine issues relating the conduct of IS research in organisations through multiple iterations in the action research cycle proposed by Susman and Evered. We argue that the progress through iterations allows the researcher to gradually broaden the research scope and in consequence add generality to the research findings. A brief illustrative case is provided with a study on groupware introduction in a large civil engineering company. In the light of this illustrative case we contend that effective application of the iterative approach to action research has the potential to bring research rigour up closer to standards acceptable by positivists and yet preserve the elements that characterise action research as such.

Multiview was defined in 1985 and has been since refined to become an influential approach to information systems development. It has soft and hard aspects and, as a contingency approach, is not prescriptive but adapted to the particular situation in the organization and the application. Observations and reflections on Multiview in action over the last ten years together with more recent literature based on, for example, holism, emergence, multi‐causality, ethical analysis and technology foresight, form the basis for a new definition of Multiview. Changes in the domain of information systems are also taken into account. Away from centralized technology, long lead times and hierarchical organizations, towards networks, new organizational forms, business processes, informational products and services, and the removal of time and space constraints on human activity. This paper underlines the need for IS researchers to learn about methodologies as they are used in practice (rather than as described in text books) and for methodologies to evolve in response to changes in the domain in which they are applied.

The purpose of this study is to examine backsourcing, which refers to the full or partial re-internalization of a firm’s previously outsourced activity. Researchers have primarily focused on the drivers of backsourcing, but this paper builds on that prior research to develop a typology of backsourcing.

Drawing on transaction cost economics and the resource-based view (RBV), the paper posits that firms backsource because of two factors – changes in their short-run total costs and changes in their internal capabilities for re-internalization. By using the interactions between these two factors, the authors propose four types of backsourcing.

The paper presents a typology for backsourcing: profitability-backsourcing, operational-backsourcing, strategic-backsourcing and failure-backsourcing. Only one (failure-backsourcing) of these four types of backsourcing suggests failure, while the other three indicate strategic flexibility. The authors also present mini-cases to support the typology.

The paper presents a conceptual model of backsourcing. This is a limitations of the study and further research is needed to empirically test the proposed model.

From a managerial perspective, this framework can be used as a decision-making tool for firms that are considering backsourcing. Given the complexity involved and the perceived stigma, decision-makers may find it difficult to backsource. Thus, a framework to avoid biases leading to decision-making errors, as well as to understand if backsourcing is a viable option, is needed.

This paper is one of the first to present a typology of backsourcing which can be used to understand when it is a failure of the outsourcing strategy and when it is a signal of strategic flexibility. This paper contributes to the growing stream of research on backsourcing by moving the literature beyond determinants and bringing attention to the outcomes of backsourcing. Additionally, the proposed framework can be used as a tool by decision-makers to examine whether backsourcing is favorable for their firm based on costs and capabilities for re-internalization.

This paper aims to offer the results of a survey about information systems (IS) outsourcing.

The methodology is a questionnaire survey of 357 IS managers in Spanish firms.

IS outsourcing is a widespread activity that has been growing on a worldwide basis in recent years. The main outsourcing success factors for large Spanish firms are, in order of priority, the provider's understanding of clients' objectives, choosing the right provider, and the client's clear idea of what is sought through outsourcing.

Identifies the most important outsourcing success factors from the client point of view and present the relationships they have with certain characteristics of the firm like, for instance, its size.

Presents first an overview of a case study exploring the information systems/information technology (IS/IT) outsourcing phenomenon in the public sector of Kuwait where the data collection for this study was carried out. The primary data on IS/IT outsourcing practices were collected by means of survey questionnaire and semi‐structured interviews supported by organisational documentation. Several public sector institutions, including the Ministry of Public Health, participated in the investigation. Second, this paper seeks to develop a conceptual contingency model for the successful implementation of IS/IT outsourcing arrangements in the context of Kuwait. The model addresses many interacting variables, from national culture and social factors through contractual issues. Argues that it is necessary to take account of all these variables to ensure successful implementation of IS/IT outsourcing arrangements. The study findings suggest that there will be an increasing utilisation of IS/IT outsourcing services in the public sector of Kuwait, particularly at its main component, the public health care sector.