IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cir/cirwor/98s-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Assessing the Risk of IT Outsourcing

Author

Listed:
  • Benoit Aubert
  • Michel Patry
  • Suzanne Rivard

Abstract

Outsourcing decisions, and contractual arrangements of the type required by an IT outsourcing deal, entail risks. This is not to say that outsourcing is bad in itself. It only means that, as in other risky business ventures such as new product development, capital investments, and IS projects, risk assessment and risk management are important contributors to the success of an IT outsourcing venture. This paper focuses on risk assessment. After providing a brief conceptual definition of risk, the paper reviews the empirical literature in order to identify the0501n undesirable outcomes that may result from an IT outsourcing deal. It then uses transaction cost and agency theory as a primary theoretical basis, and proposes a framework for categorizing risk factors which have been identified in the literature. Finally, the paper discusses the dynamics of risk, by examining how the various risk factors are linked to the undesirable outcomes Ce texte porte sur l'évaluation du risque d'impartition des services informatiques. Le risque est défini ici comme étant fonction d'événements indésirables pouvant résulter d'une décision d'impartir, et des facteurs pouvant mener à ces événements indésirables. La théorie des coûts de transaction et la théorie de l'agence servent de base théorique à l'identification des principaux facteurs de risque. Les événements indésirables sont identifiés à partir d'une recension des écrits sur l'impartition des services informatiques.

Suggested Citation

  • Benoit Aubert & Michel Patry & Suzanne Rivard, 1998. "Assessing the Risk of IT Outsourcing," CIRANO Working Papers 98s-16, CIRANO.
  • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:98s-16
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/98s-16.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David E. M. Sappington, 1991. "Incentives in Principal-Agent Relationships," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 45-66, Spring.
    2. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    3. Yoram Barzel, 1997. "Measurement Cost and the Organization of Markets," Chapters, in: Svetozar Pejovich (ed.), The Economic Foundations of Property Rights, chapter 13, pages 171-192, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    5. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    6. Langlois, Richard N. & Robertson, Paul L., 1992. "Networks and innovation in a modular system: Lessons from the microcomputer and stereo component industries," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 297-313, August.
    7. David J. Teece & Richard Rumelt & Giovanni Dosi & Sidney Winter, 2000. "Understanding Corporate Coherence: Theory and Evidence," Chapters, in: Innovation, Organization and Economic Dynamics, chapter 9, pages 264-293, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Roll, Richard, 1986. "The Hubris Hypothesis of Corporate Takeovers," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 197-216, April.
    9. Fine, Charles H. & Whitney, Daniel E., 1996. "Is the make-buy decision process a core competence?," Working papers #140-96. Working paper (S, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    10. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Asatiani, Aleksandre & Apte, Uday & Penttinen, Esko & Rönkkö, Mikko & Saarinen, Timo, 2019. "Impact of accounting process characteristics on accounting outsourcing - Comparison of users and non-users of cloud-based accounting information systems," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Benoit Aubert & Vital Roy, 1999. "A Resource Based View of the Information Systems Sourcing Mode," CIRANO Working Papers 99s-34, CIRANO.
    3. Nils Urbach & Tobias Würz, 2012. "How to Steer the IT Outsourcing Provider," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 4(5), pages 247-259, October.
    4. Benoit Aubert & Michel Patry & Suzanne Rivard, 2001. "Managing IT Outsourcing Risk: Lessons Learned," CIRANO Working Papers 2001s-39, CIRANO.
    5. Chris Bennett & Greg T Timbrell, 2000. "Application Service Providers: Will They Succeed?," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 2(2), pages 195-211, August.
    6. Benoit Aubert & Michel Patry & Suzanne Rivard & Heather Smith, 2000. "IT Outsourcing Risk Management at British Petroleum," CIRANO Working Papers 2000s-31, CIRANO.
    7. Benoit Aubert & Vital Roy, 2000. "A Resource-Based Analysis of IT Oursourcing," CIRANO Working Papers 2000s-30, CIRANO.
    8. Beasley, Mark & Bradford, Marianne & Dehning, Bruce, 2009. "The value impact of strategic intent on firms engaged in information systems outsourcing," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 79-96.
    9. Benoit Aubert & Sylvie Dussault & Michel Patry & Suzanne Rivard, 1998. "Managing the Risk of IT Outsourcing," CIRANO Working Papers 98s-18, CIRANO.
    10. Julia Trampel, 2004. "To Offshore or Nearshore IT services? An investigation using transaction cost theory," Industrial Organization 0406001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Kim Wüllenweber & Daniel Beimborn & Tim Weitzel & Wolfgang König, 2008. "The impact of process standardization on business process outsourcing success," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 211-224, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benoit Aubert & Sylvie Dussault & Michel Patry & Suzanne Rivard, 1998. "Managing the Risk of IT Outsourcing," CIRANO Working Papers 98s-18, CIRANO.
    2. Benoit Aubert & Michel Patry & Suzanne Rivard & Heather Smith, 2000. "IT Outsourcing Risk Management at British Petroleum," CIRANO Working Papers 2000s-31, CIRANO.
    3. Mehrdad Vahabi, 1999. "From Walrasian General Equilibrium to Incomplete Contracts: Making Sense of Institutions," Post-Print halshs-03704424, HAL.
    4. Kaouthar Lajili & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2006. "Revisiting agency and transaction costs theory predictions on vertical financial ownership and contracting: electronic integration as an organizational form choice," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(7), pages 573-586.
    5. Benoit Aubert & Michel Patry & Suzanne Rivard, 2001. "Managing IT Outsourcing Risk: Lessons Learned," CIRANO Working Papers 2001s-39, CIRANO.
    6. Nicholas S. Argyres & Janet Bercovitz & Kyle J. Mayer, 2007. "Complementarity and Evolution of Contractual Provisions: An Empirical Study of IT Services Contracts," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 3-19, February.
    7. Dow, Gregory K. & Putterman, Louis, 2000. "Why capital suppliers (usually) hire workers: what we know and what we need to know," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 319-336, November.
    8. Todorova, Tamara, 2022. "Оливър Уилямсън: Новатор На 20 Век И Основател На Новата Институционална Икономика [Oliver Williamson: an innovator of the 20th century and founder of the new institutional economics]," MPRA Paper 121077, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kim, Sukkoo, 1999. "The Rise of Multiunit Firms in U.S. Manufacturing," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 360-386, October.
    10. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "The Governance of the New Enterprise," CRSP working papers 487, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    11. Kenneth Ayotte & Patrick Bolton, 2011. "Optimal Property Rights in Financial Contracting," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(10), pages 3401-3433.
    12. Gérard Charreaux, 2002. "Variation sur le thème:"À la recherche de nouvelles fondations pour la finance et la gouvernance d'entreprise"," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 5(3), pages 5-68, September.
    13. Bennedsen, Morten & Fan, Joseph P.H. & Jian, Ming & Yeh, Yin-Hua, 2015. "The family business map: Framework, selective survey, and evidence from Chinese family firm succession," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 212-226.
    14. Dietrich, Diemo & Jindra, Björn, 2010. "Corporate governance in the multinational enterprise: A financial contracting perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 446-456, October.
    15. Luigi Zingales, 2000. "In Search of New Foundations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1623-1653, August.
    16. Scott Shane, 2001. "Organizational Incentives and Organizational Mortality," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 136-160, April.
    17. Cayer, Mario & Minkler, Lanse, 1998. "Dualism, dialogue and organizations: Reflections on organizational transformation and labor-managed firms," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 53-77.
    18. Hendrikse, G.W.J. & Veerman, C.P., 1995. "Marketing Cooperatives and Financial Structure," Discussion Paper 1995-46, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    19. Jain, Amit, 2011. "Connaissance, ressources, concurrence et les frontières de l'entreprise," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/6403 edited by Thiétart, Raymond-Alain.
    20. Patrick Bolton & David S. Scharfstein, 1998. "Corporate Finance, the Theory of the Firm, and Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 95-114, Fall.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Outsourcing of IS; agency theory; transaction cost economics; Sous-traitance des systèmes informatiques; théorie de l'agence; économie des coûts de transaction;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L23 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Organization of Production

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:98s-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciranca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.