@inproceedings{3cb7e6b446894527a165e3da7bbe8b96,
title = "Transaction cost economics and industry maturity in it outsourcing: A meta-analysis of contract type choice",
abstract = "Recent reviews of the information technology outsourcing (ITO) literature report high variance in research results when Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) is used as the analytical framework. Informed by ITO market developments, including increasing commoditisation, market consolidation, and market transparency, we develop an explanation for these mixed results contingent on ITO industry maturity. We adopt meta-analysis to show that ITO industry maturity significantly explains variance in the choice of contract type (time and materials vs. fixed price) in ITO projects. Our results suggest that TCE is relevant to explain the choice of contract type in the emerging phase of the ITO industry, but not in its current mature phase. We conclude that a TCE-based analytical framework is not well suited for the study of ITO in the current mature industry phase. Instead, we propose that an {"}endogenous{"} ITO theory should be developed that focuses on differences in client behaviour rather than vendor behaviour.",
keywords = "Contract type, IT outsourcing, Industry maturity, Meta-analysis, Transaction cost economics",
author = "Konrad Dongus and Philip Yetton and Michael Schermann and Helmut Krcmar",
year = "2014",
language = "English",
isbn = "9780991556700",
series = "ECIS 2014 Proceedings - 22nd European Conference on Information Systems",
publisher = "Association for Information Systems",
booktitle = "ECIS 2014 Proceedings - 22nd European Conference on Information Systems",
note = "22nd European Conference on Information Systems, ECIS 2014 ; Conference date: 09-06-2014 Through 11-06-2014",
}