Maturity in IT outsourcing relationships: an exploratory study of client companies

Abstract

Purpose -This research is concerned with the validation of a maturity model for information technology outsourcing relationships. The paper aims to focus on this research. Design/methodology/approach -This research is validating the cost, resource and partnership stages, respectively, as maturity stages in outsourcing relationships developed and proposed by Gottschalk and Solli-Saether. Findings -First, stages of growth and benchmark variables were validated. Then, the evolving path of growth was examined. Limited support for the stage of growth model was found. Practical implications -This paper suggests a broad range of organizational activities and structures to guide development from one stage of maturity to the next. To stimulate growth developments, individuals and organizations have to understand and experience transitional events in relationship maturity. Originality/value -Validation procedure linking stages to benchmark variables is presented. Future empirical research should rephrase some of the authors benchmark variables as well as measurement issues concerned with stages of growth.

The Modeling Process for Stage Models

“…Finally, managers are asked to indicate paths of evolution. Results from model testing show that empirical validation is problematic [10][11][12], but some researchers have succeeded in their validation [4,13].…”

“…The debate over whether stages exist has suffered from a lack of empirical evidence. Researchers have tried to statistically test whether firms actually advance through stages over time, finding that empirical validation of the stages of growth through benchmark variables has been problematic [e.g., [10][11][12]. (3) There is no inevitable linear sequence of stages in organizational life.…”

E-government Stage Models: A Contextual Critique

“…Many of the governance models in the third era moved beyond ISP and into areas such as Process Improvement [35], Outsourcing, [88], Business/IT Relationship Management [60], General ICT Management [81], Software Maintenance [3], Knowledge Management [16], [31] and Innovation [101]. With the exception of [35], all of these remaining management and governance models are design science models reflecting the CMMI template.…”

Creating a learning organization in law enforcement

“…Colquitt and Zapata‐Phelan (2007) introduced a taxonomy that reflects the theoretical contribution of empirical articles along two dimensions; theory building and theory testing. An attempt towards theory testing for an IT outsourcing maturity model was carried out by Solli‐Sæther and Gottschalk (2008), where limited empirical support was found for the hypotheses. As the authors of an empirical article, they followed the hypothetical‐deductive approach to theory by formulating hypotheses before testing those hypotheses with observations.…”