IT Outsourcing Governance Client Types and Their Management Strategies

Information systems (IS) outsourcing is a key driver as well as an outcome of the professio- lization, industrialization, and service orientation in the IT services industry. It has become an established business practice and a popular research issue. Along with this popularity, o- sourcing has changed tremendously over the past decades and so have its scope, complexity, and the variety of outsourcing options. Surprisingly, still many outsourcing arrangements are not successful. Divergent expectations of both parties towards the venture along with an - sufficient governance can cause the outsourcing relationship to turn sour. Current research shows that a one-size-fits-all governance approach for outsourcing projects is not appropriate and a differentiation of outsourcing clients is necessary. Encouraged by the current challenges of the outsourcing market, this work presents a dif- rentiated approach to investigate various types of IS outsourcing relationships and their c- racteristics depending on the underlying expectations of the outsourcing clients. Grounded on the current body of knowledge of the outsourcing research literature and a variety of current theories in the fields of information systems, business administration, and social theories, it develops a framework for classifying outsourcing projects and clients. This framework builds the foundation to empirically examine different outsourcing projects, their constitutive e- ments, and management approaches among German IT executives and CIOs. Based on these insights, the work proposes appropriate governance mechanisms for the management of each outsourcing client type.