Governance of information technology outsourcing relationships：the impact of clients&rsquo; innovation intent

Mei Shu'e; Xie Gang

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Science Research Management ›› 2013, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (8) : 130-138.

Governance of information technology outsourcing relationships：the impact of clients’ innovation intent

Mei Shu'e, Xie Gang

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Abstract

In order to explore how the IT-outsourcing enterprises with different innovation intents apply the contractual governance and the relational mechanism to manage their relations with the service providers, this paper will, based on an view of the transaction cost economics and the relational exchange theory, construct a research model which attempts to analyze the impact of the innovation intent on the relationships between two governance mechanisms and service quality and on the relationships between the assets specificity and the governance mechanisms. The model is empirically tested using data collected from 220 enterprises. The results suggest that the supplier's assets specificity will enable the enterprises to strengthen both the contractual governance and the relational mechanism whereas the outsourcer's assets specificity will enable the enterprises to strengthen the relational mechanism. When supplier's assets specificity increases, the innovation-oriented enterprises and the non-innovation-oriented enterprises will both strengthen the relational mechanism, but the former is more inclined to strengthen the contractual governance than the latter is. Relational mechanism plays a more important role on promoting the service quality in innovation-oriented enterprises than in non-innovation-oriented ones. However, the contractual governance plays the same important role in both type of enterprises.

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IT outsourcing / innovation intent / assets specificity / contractual governance / relational mechanism

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Mei Shu'e, Xie Gang. Governance of information technology outsourcing relationships：the impact of clients’ innovation intent[J]. Science Research Management. 2013, 34(8): 130-138

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