تاثیر برون سپاری بر هزینه های فناوری اطلاعات

Information technology outsourcing (ITOS) is a strategy used by many firms to either reduce their total cost of IT or gain access to IT capabilities not available in-house. A proprietary data set of large US firms is used to examine the effect of ITOS on firm-level IT spending over the seven-year period 1999–2005. Prior research suggested that (1) engaging in ITOS would be associated with a lower level of IT spending and (2) the extent of ITOS would be negatively associated with the level of IT spending. The results did not support either hypothesis. IT outsourcing is associated with higher IT spending, presumably reflecting the costs of enhancing IT capabilities. This increase in IT spending is driven by firms that initially outsource a large percentage of their IT activity. This paper makes three contributions to the literature. First, it is the first study to investigate whether the act of engaging in ITOS is associated with an objective, quantitative measure of IT spending in a large sample of firms over time. Second, it investigates whether the extent of ITOS affects IT spending, i.e., whether a higher level of ITOS has a greater impact on IT spending. Third, it examines IT spending at the aggregate firm level rather than the individual IT project level, providing a broader measure of the impact of ITOS on the IT function.

Information technology outsourcing (ITOS) is a widely used strategy for managing information technology spending and capabilities (Carmel and Agarwal, 2002 and Farber, 2005). Gartner estimated in 2005 that the global market for ITOS (not including business process outsourcing) would grow steadily to $130 billion by 2008 (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2005), and expects the number of firms engaging in ITOS to continue to grow in 2009 (Gartner, 2009). US-based customers comprise nearly 60% of the global market, making the US the primary region in the industry. The motives for engaging in ITOS have been the subject of extensive discussion in the academic and practitioner literatures. The most common objectives cited are reducing the cost of IT and gaining access to IT capabilities not available in-house (Dibbern et al., 2004 and Mahnke et al., 2005). Empirical research examining the subsequent firm-level effects of ITOS is much more limited. Several studies examine the effect of outsourcing announcements on short-term investor returns (Hayes et al., 2000, Florin et al., 2005, Oh et al., 2006b, Lim et al., 2007 and Beasley et al., 2009) and two studies examine their relation to subsequent firm accounting performance (Wang et al., 2008 and Bhalla et al., 2008). Another group of studies has examined the factors affecting whether individual ITOS projects meet managers' qualitative expectations for success or satisfaction (Dibbern et al., 2004). Remarkably, empirical research has not yet examined the effect of ITOS on the variable it is expected to most directly affect — the firm's IT expenditure level — to determine whether ITOS is in fact associated with lower firm-level IT spending. This may be due to the difficulty of obtaining both ITOS and IT spending data for a large number of firms.

This study investigates the impact on firms' level of IT spending of decisions to outsource a portion of their IT activities. Given the pervasiveness of IT outsourcing (over 90% of the firms in the current sample engage in it) and the magnitude of IT spending in the economy, understanding ITOS's impact on spending is an important area for research and practice. To date, research has not examined the relation between ITOS and aggregate firm IT spending. The current study examines this relation using a comprehensive sample of large firms from the US, which comprises 60% of the global ITOS market. The findings have implications for both managers and researchers. For managers, the findings indicate that though practitioner research emphasizes ITOS's cost-reduction benefits gained at the individual project level, outsourcing is associated with higher IT spending, presumably reflecting enhancement of capabilities. These impacts are significant and immediate for firms that initially outsource a large proportion (top quartile includes outsourcing of 20% or more) of their IT activity. These firms are using ITOS in addition to expanding in-house capabilities. As firms continue to outsource (i.e., have outsourced for two or more years), IT spending becomes higher than for non-outsourcers regardless of the extent of ITOS. It may be that the decision to keep all IT spending in-house reflects something different about the opportunities for IT at the firms that do so. This decision, with its associated lower costs, appears to be a short-term tactical move rather than a sustainable long-term strategy given the limited time period that firms opt out of outsourcing (less than 2% of sample firms avoid IT outsourcing for three successive years). An alternative, less favorable, explanation is that managers generally are unable to effectively enter into and govern ITOS arrangements and therefore do not obtain increases in capability but merely higher costs (Farber, 2005). Firms that outsource core business capabilities may find it difficult to bring them back once experienced in-house staff have been replaced or transfer employment to an outsourcing firm, and find themselves ‘captured’ by their outsourcing vendors (Beasley et al., 2004). However, this seems an unlikely explanation for the findings given that firms engage in ITOS selectively (mean ITOS 15.3%) and the data span several years, providing firms with ample time to adjust to opportunistic vendor behavior.