ارزیابی استفاده از تئوری هزینه معاملات در برون سپاری فناوری اطلاعات

Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) has been widely used in information technology outsourcing (ITO) research to explain and predict outsourcing decisions and outsourcing-related outcomes. This research, however, has led to mixed and unexpected results in terms of the effects of transaction attributes on outsourcing decisions and outcomes. This study assesses the empirical literature employing TCT-based ITO models in terms of its faithfulness to the precepts of TCT, and argues that one possible explanation for the mixed results is that the extant models do not capture all the essential elements of TCT. First, there are core TCT constructs that the extant models do not take into account; second, the linkages among constructs that the IT outsourcing models have hypothesized are not always in line with TCT precepts; and third, the normative nature of the theory is not always captured by the extant models. This paper, therefore, aims to provide one possible answer to the question: “Why have the appropriations made of TCT to study IT outsourcing produced mixed results?”

Whether to make or buy is a fundamental issue that organizations must address with regards to a variety of products and services. When the issue concerns the firm’s information technology (IT) services, several organizations opt for outsourcing, or a “situation in which part or all of the IT activities an organization needs are performed by one or more external suppliers” (De Looff, 1995, p. 282). Over the years, two main IT outsourcing (ITO) research streams have formed. The first examines the potential determinants or antecedents that can be used to explain and predict the IT outsourcing decision and/or outcome (e.g. Dedrick and Kraemer, 2010, Nam et al., 1996 and Thouin et al., 2009), and the second studies the post-outsourcing phase, examining how the outsourcing relationship is managed (e.g. Choudhury and Sabherwal, 2003, Ho et al., 2003 and Kern and Willcocks, 2000). This study falls into the first stream of research, as it is concerned with the antecedents and consequences of the IT outsourcing decision.

We set out to review the TCT-based ITO literature to understand why IT outsourcing studies that appropriate TCT have produced mixed results, focusing on how TCT has been used in ITO models. In the course of our study, we observed similar contradictory results in other domains where TCT has been applied and tested. In strategy research, for instance, where TCT has been used to examine the firm’s boundary decisions, the results have been mixed, particularly with regards to the role of uncertainty (Carter and Hodgson, 2006). Indeed, studies found either insignificant relationships or negative relationships between technological uncertainty and vertical integration, which runs counter to TCT. Another study, which reviewed TCT applications across several domains, including marketing, strategy, management science, and economics, shows that uncertainty yields the most inconsistent results, either alone or in interaction with asset specificity (David and Han, 2004). They also found that frequency is the least used construct, that uncertainty is associated with inconsistent results, and that asset specificity is the most widely used construct. While in both of these reviews, asset specificity yields the most consistent results, our review shows that this construct is most often associated with inconsistent results (40% support for TCT).