AMCIS 2007@KEYSTONE -- CONFERENCE TRACK(MINI TRACK)

Outsourcing IS Development,

IT Operations,

and Business Processes

IT Management

Chairs:

Mihir A. Parikh (mihir.parikh@bus.ucf.edu)
University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA.
+1 (407) 823-5374

Wendy L. Currie (wendy.currie@wbs.ac.uk)
Warwick Business School, Coventry, UK.
+44 (0) 24 7652 4262

Mark Borman (m.borman@econ.usyd.edu.au)
The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
+61 2 9036 9063

Description:

Outsourcing is evolving into a fast-growing, global phenomenon as the organizational focus shifts from technology to systems to processes. Increasing numbers of organizations world-wide already outsource their systems development and IT operations activities. The impacts of outsourcing are far-reaching, ranging from effects on individuals to re-definition of the role of IS/IT departments to even realignment of national and global economies.

Outsourcing is not just limited to IS/IT activities; rather it is quickly extending to other organizational functions, which are also under constant pressure to improve efficiency and cut costs. Many business processes, such as customer support, call center, technical support, human resource management, accounting and audit services, and claims or document processing, are being outsourced, often to off-shore service providers. This creates unprecedented opportunities for IS/IT researchers and practitioners, as IT is a key enabler of business process outsourcing.

This mini-track focuses on various research issues in outsourcing and invites research papers (both completed research and research-in-progress) on the following possible topics (not all possible topics are listed):

• Information systems development outsourcing
• IT operations outsourcing
• IT-enabled inter-organizational relationships
• IT-enabled business process outsourcing (BPO)
• IT-enabled knowledge process outsourcing (KPO)
• Shared-services and co-sourcing alliances
• In-sourcing and back-sourcing
• Antecedents and consequences of outsourcing
• The evolution of outsourcing of IT and IT-enabled services
• Theoretical research models in outsourcing
• The role of outsourcing in IT asset portfolio governance
• Outsourcing strategies, techniques, and success factors
• Relationship development and management in outsourcing
• Transaction costs, agency costs, and other economic issues in outsourcing
• Differences in outsourcing (On-site versus off-site; selective versus total)
• Systems and process integration in outsourcing
• Outsourcing contracts and service level agreement (SLA) development and management
• Process and quality control in outsourcing
• Outsourcing provider selection and pricing strategies
• Outsourcing decision process and influencing factors
• Impact of outsourcing on productivity and performance
• Impact of organizational culture and leadership on outsourcing success
• Assessment of benefits and limitations of outsourcing
• Best practices in outsourcing
• Outsourcing risks and risk mitigation strategies
• Outsourcing vendors and their positioning
• Off-shore outsourcing and global services
• Application service provider (ASP) business models and experiences
• Organizational issues in Web Services
• Call center and technical support outsourcing issues
• IT-enabled new inter-organizational forms
• Reversing outsourcing or back-sourcing
• Social and ethical issues in outsourcing
• Policy and regulatory implications of outsourcing
• Emerging trends in outsourcing

We encourage conceptual, theoretical, practical, and empirical research papers on both managerial and technical topics and contributing to current knowledge in theory or practice. Papers can primarily target either academic or practitioner audiences, but they should be based on sound academic research.