Management Control of Support Services: The Case of IT Sourcing
22 Pages Posted: 11 Jul 2009
Date Written: April 10, 2009
Abstract
This paper provides evidence on the factors that influence the design of the control arrangements that govern support services. Based on TCE, we hypothesize that control structure choices depend on asset specificity, uncertainty, and frequency. Using survey data on IT sourcing decisions from 89 firms in the construction industry, we find support for most of our hypotheses. Our results indicate that asset specificity negatively affects firms’ propensity to outsource, and that (behavioural) uncertainty intensifies this negative effect. As expected, we also find that frequency has a negative direct effect on the willingness to outsource IT services provision. However, we find no support for the hypothesized interaction between asset specificity and frequency.
Keywords: support services, sourcing decisions, information technology, transaction cost economics
JEL Classification: L22, M41
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Encouraging Best Practice in Quantitative Management Research: An Incomplete List of Opportunities
By Raj Echambadi, Ben Campbell, ...
-
Building Better Theory by Bridging the Quantitative-Qualitative Divide
By Sonali Shah and Kevin G. Corley
-
Negative Consequences of Dichotomizing Continuous Predictor Variables
By Gary Mcclelland and Julie R. Irwin
-
By Natasha Caverley, J. Barton Cunningham, ...
-
Health Among Leaders: Positive and Negative Affect, Engagement and Burnout, Forgiveness and Revenge
By Laura M. Little, Bret L. Simmons, ...
-
*Managerial Dimensions of Organizational Health: The Healthy Leader at Work
By James Campbell Quick, Marilyn Macik-frey, ...