Tensions in Global IT Multisourcing Arrangements: Examining the Barriers to Attaining Common Value Creation

Abstract

Previous contributions on IT multisourcing were mainly focused on strategy and governance. The way in which actors exchange value as well as information and knowledge has been ignored. Given this void, this paper adopts the ecosystem metaphor and concepts from business model thinking to study common value creation and capturing. An exploratory, casestudy is used to study a global IT multisourcing arrangement. The results indicate four barriers in ecosystems that may hinder value creation: managed interdependencies, resource integration, ecosystem boundary spanners, and formal inter-organizational contractual agreements. We contribute to IS literature by exploring, beyond the strategic decision to collaborate, the complexity and mutual dependencies of competing and collaborating actors within a global IT multisourcing context.

Single-Sourcing vs. Multisourcing: An Empirical Analysis of Large Information Technology Outsourcing Arrangements

“…While theoretical and analytical models of singlesourcing vs multisourcing have been developed (Bhattacharya et al 2018) and there is empirical research (Angst et al 2017) that analyzes multisourcing trends in one industry (healthcare), there is no empirical research that examines the antecedents and consequents of multisourcing in the context of IT across multiple industries. The extant studies in multisourcing (e.g., Levina and Su 2008, Wiener and Saunders 2014, Aubert et al 2016, Plugge and Bouwman 2018, Lioliou et al 2019) are predominantly in-depth case studies that focus on the question of how to manage multisourcing arrangements. Our contention is that prior to managing a relationship, the client needs to first make sure to enter into the right type of outsourcing arrangement, so in this paper we focus on the determinants of the right type of outsourcing arrangement and the consequences of not entering into the correct outsourcing arrangement.…”

“…We further nuance the differences across various key papers in each section by focusing on their key research question, theoretical perspective, and methodology used. The IS literature focusing on single-sourcing vs multisourcing is sparse, and most of it falls under managing the outsourcing relationship (Levina and Su 2008, Wiener and Saunders 2014, Aubert et al 2016, Plugge and Bouwman 2018, Lioliou et al 2019. All of these are in-depth case studies that focus on the question of how to manage multisourcing arrangements.…”

Mobile Payment Innovation Ecosystem and Mechanism: A Case Study of Taiwan’s Servicescapes

“…By creating a balanced ecosystem, all participants involved are able to create and capture business value for the entire ecosystem [37]. All participants are resource integrators in a network of other participants, and all participants are potential innovators or co-creators of value [38]. Mobile payment ecosystem managers need to develop different behaviors based on users' usage of each proposed payment tool [39].…”

A framework for software vendor selection by applying Inconsistency and Conflict Removal (ICR) method

“…Analyzing vendor proposals and selecting one of the potential vendors require highly proficient personnel (Killen et al 2020;Rani et al 2021Rani et al , 2022 as analyzing the capabilities of each vendor and then evaluating those according to the company's strategic and architectural goals is a subjective task, which requires processing of qualitative data in large quantities (Jadhav and Sonar 2011;Plugge and Bouwman 2018). It can lead to challenges such as how this data can be presented and visualized comprehensibly to facilitate better decision support ) and to make it comply with the overall architectural/ strategic goals (Herath and Kishore 2009).…”