Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/81338

Title

Establishing the trust-control balance in client-vendor outsourcing relationships: empirical evidence from two IS outsourcing projects

Author(s)

Bekmamedova, Nargiza;  Vorobiev, Artem;  McKay, Judy

Abstract

Nowadays, intense global competition requires companies to reposition themselves in value networks and build more sustainable and long-term relationships with their outsourcing partners. Trust and formal controls are critical issues in contemporary outsourcing arrangements today. This paper contributes to the understanding of the trust-control nexus in dynamic outsourcing relationships and argues that the achieved level of balance leads to a different course of the development of an outsourcing arrangement. These issues are explored in two case studies, where the knowledge on trust and controls is constructed in the form of organisational narratives. The analysis of the cases reveals how the client and vendor's actions oscillate between different balancing levels of trust and controls in the relationship dynamics and how this leads to contrasting outsourcing outcomes.

Publication type

Conference paper

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies

Research centre

Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Business and Enterprise. Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship

Source

Proceedings of 'Evolving boundaries and new frontiers: defining the IS discipline', the 20th Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS 2009), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 02-04 December 2009, pp. 267-277

Publication year

2009

FOR Code(s)

0806 Information Systems

Keyword(s)

Balance;  Case studies;  Formal controls;  IS outsourcing relationship;  Outsourcing;  System outsourcing;  Trust;  Trust-control relationship

Publisher

Australasian Association for Information Systems

ISBN

9780646525709

Publisher URL

http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/about/news/conferences/acis09/Proceedings/proceedings.html

Copyright

Proceedings copyright © 2009 Monash University. This paper copyright © 2009 the authors. The authors assign to ACIS and educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grant a non-exclusive licence to ACIS to publish this document in full in the Conference Papers and Proceedings. Those documents may be published on the World Wide Web, CD-ROM, in printed form, and on mirror sites on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.

Peer reviewed