More than half of information technology (IT) outsourced projects fail, primarily due to a lack of effective management practices surrounding the outsourcing end-to-end process. Ineffective management of the IT outsourcing (ITO) process affects organizations in the form of higher than expected project costs, including greater vendor switching or reintegration costs, poor quality, and loss of profits. These effects indicate that some business leaders lack the strategies to effectively manage the ITO process. The purpose of this single-case study was to apply the transaction cost economics (TCE) theory to explore strategies 5 business professionals use to manage an ITO project in a financial services organization located in the Midwestern region of the United States. Participant selection was purposeful and was based on the integral role the participants play on the ITO project. Data collection occurred via face-to-face semistructured interviews with the participants and the review of company documents. Data were analyzed using inductive coding of phrases, word frequency searches, and theme interpretation. Three themes emerged: vendor governance and oversight, collaborative strategic partnership, and risk management strategies enabled effective management of ITO. Identifying and executing appropriate outsourcing strategies may contribute to social change by improving outsourcing infrastructure, which might support job creation; increasing standards of living, especially within emerging markets; and heightening awareness of different cultures, norms, and languages among people living in different regions around the world to establish commonalities and gain alignment with business practices.

Information technology (IT) outsourcing poses a potential job loss threat to IT professionals, which can decrease job security, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. The problem that this study addressed was the perceived role of IT outsourcing in the job stress, job dissatisfaction, and turnover intention of IT professionals. The purpose of this study was to explore how job-related stress, job dissatisfaction, and turnover intention within the IT profession are influenced by outsourcing as perceived by IT workers themselves. Phenomenology was the methodology used, and the person-environment fit theory formed the theoretical framework for this study. The research questions addressed outsourcing and its impact on IT employees, based on the perceptions of the participants. Data were collected from 20 IT professionals at 4 medium-sized firms within Central Florida using open-ended interview questions. Significant themes emerged as the interview data were analyzed and coded using words that best described the data. Synthesis of the data collected indicated that job stress and job dissatisfaction were continuing concerns among the participants, as indicated in current general literature. However, turnover intention had a less consequential impact on the IT workers' reactions to the effects of outsourcing. Contrary to the expectation that IT outsourcing plays a negative role in the job satisfaction of the participants, the study results indicated that the majority of the participants were still satisfied in their positions following IT outsourcing activities. Managers could impact social change by understanding the levels of stress and job satisfaction IT professionals experience during outsourcing. Insights from this study may help improve employees' productivity, commitment, and contributions to their local economies.

The automotive industry is in the midst of historic change: changing consumer preferences, new technologies and tougher sustainability requirements. Car manufacturers are forced to transform their businesses fundamentally while striking a balance between current needs and future opportunities. In recent years, collaborative product development has become an important business strategy as a means to respond to the changing market conditions. Despite many benefits, however, collaborations with suppliers place substantial pressure on the focal firm as joint efforts must be managed and coordinated carefully. The purpose of this thesis was to explore the feasibility of outsourcing coordination of supplier involvement in collaborative product development projects. The purpose was operationalized by a research question seeking to identify characteristic risk factors in the aforementioned outsourcing context. Thus, the thesis was built upon a theoretical foundation of the interface between collaborative product development, outsourcing and risk management theories. In the methodology, a multi-step research design was taken that included reviewing documents, observing participants as well as conducting interviews and workshops. The analysis yielded a comprehensive overview of relevant risk factors in outsourcing coordination of supplier involvement in collaborative product development projects. The outsourcing practice has proven to be inherently risky as a total of 10 different risk factors were identified and their characteristics assessed. The research has shown that both effective risk management strategies and adjustment to corporate regulations and policies are required if the outsourcing practice is to be implemented within the contextual setting studied in the thesis. The research findings have further contributed to the existing body of literature on relevant outsourcing risk factors. / Bilindustrin är mitt i en historisk förändring: förändrade kundpreferenser, nya teknologier och hårdare krav på hållbarhet. Biltillverkare är tvingade till fundamentala förändringar av deras företag samtidigt som de måste hålla en balans mellan nuvarande behov och framtida möjligheter. Under senare år har kollaborativ produktutveckling blivit en viktig affärsstrategi för att svara på föränderliga marknadsförhållanden. Trots många fördelar skapar kollaborationer med leverantörer betydande tryck på fokalföretaget där alla förenade insatser måste ledas och koordineras försiktigt. Syftet med avhandlingen var att utforska möjligheten att outsourca koordinering av leverantörsinblandning i kollaborativa produktutvecklingsprojekt. Syftet blev operationaliserat av en forskningsfråga som sökte att identifiera karaktäristiska riskfaktorer i den tidigare nämnda outsourcing kontexten. Således var avhandlingen byggd på en teoretisk grund av gränssnittet mellan kollaborativ produktutveckling, outsourcing och riskhanteringsteorier. I metoden togs en flerstegad forskningsdesign som inkluderade att granska dokument, observera deltagare samt utföra intervjuer och workshops. Analysen gav en omfattande översikt av relevanta riskfaktorer i outsourcing av koordinering av leverantörsinblandning i kollaborativa produktutvecklingsprojekt. Bruket av outsourcing har bevisats att innebära risker, totalt 10 olika riskfaktorer blev identifierade och deras karaktäristik bedömdes. Forskningen har visat att både effektiva riskhanteringsstrategier och justering av företagsbestämmelser behövs om bruket av outsourcing ska kunna implementeras inom den kontext som studerades inom avhandlingen. Fynden i forskningen har bidragit till den existerande litteraturen om riskfaktorer i outsourcing

Syftet med denna studie är att förklara och skapa förståelse för varför företag väljer att hyra in personal samt vilka för- och nackdelar detta medför för företag. Utifrån att studiens syfte är att skapa förståelse passar en kvalitativ studie in. Valet föll specifikt på att göra en kvalitativ fallstudie. Empiriinsamlingen genomfördes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med tio väl utvalda respondenter på fallföretaget.Studien visar inte några tydliga resultat om en jämförelse görs mot tidigare forskning. Fallföretaget ser andra för- och nackdelar än den generella forskningen menar på. Detta kan tyda på att motiven bakom beslutet att hyra in personal är individuellt och helt enkelt varierar mellan företag. En annan anledning att det inte samspelar med tidigare forskning kan vara att det är annan tid nu när denna studie genomförts än vad det varit då tidigare forskning genomförts.Inhyrning av personal rymmer många aspekter och denna studie har egentligen bara berört några av dem. Framtida forskning skulle kunna fokusera mer på exempelvis arbetsmiljö eller studera kostnaderna kring inhyrning av personal ytterligare. Intressant vore även att se på detta fenomen från andra vinklar, den inhyrde konsultens eller varför inte bemanningsföretagets. / The aim with this study is to explain and search for understanding in why companies chose to hire temporary agency workers, and which pros and cons this bring to the company. Based on the purpose of the study, to search for understandning, a qualitative study suits. The choice fell on doing a qualitative case study. The empirical collection was implemented through semi-structured interviews with ten well selected respondents from the case company.The study doesn’t show any distinct results comparing to previous research. The case company sees other pros and cons then the general research has shown. This could indicate that the reason for hiring extra staff is individual and simply varies from company to company. Another reason could be that it’s another time of living now than when previous research were accomplished.The use of temporary agency workers contains many aspects and this study only refer to some of them. Future research could for example focus on work environment or look further into the costs of hiring staff. It would also be interesting to look att this phenomenon from different point of views, maybe the hired consult or why not the staffing company.

Examensarbete, G3 i företagsekonomi, Ekonomihögskolan vid Linnéuniversitet, ekonomistyrning, Enterprising and business development, 2EB003, VT 2010 Författare: Anna Fransson, Alexander Tatidis och Nils-Petter Nilsson. Handledare: Marja Soila Wadman Titel: Varför hyr företag in extern personal? Bakgrund: Faktorer till varför företag hyr in extern personal från bemanningsföretag har diskuterats livligt under lågkonjunkturen som varit. Det råder delade meningar om huruvida företag säger upp personal för att istället kunna hyra dem från bemanningsföretag. Syfte: Att klargöra varför företag använder sig av bemanningsföretag och i vilka situationer.Avgränsningar: Studien kommer att beröra företag som är baserade i Växjö. Tre branscher kommer att studeras, varav två företag i varje bransch. Teorin berör arbetsrätten samt organisationsteori. Metod: En kvalitativ undersökning i form av semi- strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts på sex personer i tre olika branscher (media & PR, IT samt industri/produktion). Personerna som intervjuats är: Anne Bergstrand (SVT), Helen Gröön (Atea Logistics), Karin Korpe (Fortnox), Lena Björkqvist (VEAB), Mikael Berg (GoodRace) och Åke Blomqvist (Södra Timber). Materialet i empirin har sedan analyserats med hjälp av fördjupade teoretiska studier. Resultat och slutsatser: De främsta faktorerna till varför företag hyr in extern personal till deras verksamhet är att de köper sig en viss ansvarsfrihet. Denna ansvarsfrihet gör att verksamheterna kan agera mer flexibelt och agera bättre och snabbare på omvärldstryck. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: en fördjupad undersökning i företags förtroende till bemanningsföretagen och tillhörande personal.

The contribution of small firms towards the creation of economic value in a country’s Gross Domestic Product, employment and innovation is widely acknowledged. Relatively little is known on how small firms are adopting IT strategically to acheive business-IT alignment and how alignment changes over time. This study examines from a dynamic perspective IT adoption actions undertaken by owner-managers, in relation to business-IT alignment in small firms in the island state of Malta. To attain its research objectives, the methodological stance adopted in this research study is that of grounded theory. Moving away from a deductive approach, this study embraces a constructivist approach using a combination of inductive and abductive thought. No fewer than thirty-one in-depth interviews are conducted with owner-managers to observe alignment patterns of IT adoption behaviour in their respective small firms operating in Malta and employing up to 49 employees. Four business-IT alignment equilibrium states are identified, serving as markers to map out the common IT alignment paths that each firm pursued, not necessarily in linear form, during their operational years. A substantive model, which identifies four distinct IT alignment patterns, denotes each common path that a group of firms took in their movement from one alignment equilibrium state to another, throughout their life-cycle stages. This study has substantive application and comprises several implications for the development of IT adoption behaviour when small firms endeavour to strategically align business with IT. It provides policy-makers, academic researchers and small firms’ owner-managers with a theoretical framework that can provide them with factors that can predict the kind of alignment patterns that are likely to occur. Findings indicate that the quality of IT related technological solutions that are taken up by each small firm are reliant on the owner-manager’s characteristics that focus mainly on the knowledge of internal IT expertise and the project management capabilities to manage IT outsourcers. Given that few studies have been conducted to study and establish patterns of IT alignment in small firms, this research provides an important contribution to knowledge and to the existing academic literature.

Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) in terms of the replacement of the in-house production of IT activities by the use of third party suppliers had already started in the 1960s and has increased considerably. For 2013, the Gartner Group expected that the global ITO market would reach a volume of 288 bn US dollars. Until 2017, the market should grow on average about 5.4% yearly. Despite the rich set of experiences companies have already had with ITO, the chances of success are seen as at best 50:50. Currently, the dramatic growth of ITO is accompanied by backsourcing of formerly outsourced IT functions or reports about dissatisfaction and problems with ITO. Scientists put ITO failures or problems down to a lack of modelling of all the possible factors affecting ITO success and demand a specific ITO theory as a basis for better explaining and predicting successes and failures in an IT sourcing context. This thesis takes up this research gap. The aim of this thesis is to develop a novel ITO Model which aids organisations in planning and implementing ITO solutions by guiding them through the ITO process steps of preparation, selection, contract, transition, execution, and post-deal comprising a comprehensive picture of the weighted aspects relevant to ITO success and their interdependencies. In order to achieve this aim, the following objectives were established for this thesis: raising the topical level of scientific knowledge of the last decades about successinfluencing factors in the ITO field based on an extensive literature survey of 48 scientific articles deriving ITO success factors from empirical research work; structuring of this success factor knowledge by the development of two ITO taxonomies (taxonomy of success factors and taxonomy of success factor interdependencies); testing its practical applicability on the basis of 8 real long-running application outsourcing cases in the banking industry; further development of the success factor knowledge by identification of weightings and the temporal relevance of relevant success factors / success factor interdependencies within the ITO process. Design of the novel ITO Model based on the empirical knowledge gained by development of rules for relevant success factors and success factor interdependencies, by arrangement of these rules in temporal order within the ITO process and by assignment of these rules to four levels of environment.

Problem - Decision makers shape the structure of the sales function, but it is unclear how they go about it and why. The rationale for making certain decisions need to be analyzed in order to understand why different decision makers apply different sales strategies. Topic - The Swedish prefabricated wooden house industry consists of many actors with no clear market leader. The sales force seems to mainly consists of external sales agents (manufacturers' representatives, also called reps), though some manufacturers also employ direct sales agents at the manufacturing company. Prefabricated wooden houses corresponded to 86% of all building permits requested during 2015. Purpose - This thesis aims to explore decision-makers' rationale behind the organization of manufacturers' sales forces in the Swedish prefabricated wooden house industry. Method - Semi-structures interviews with decision makers at manufacturing companies in the Swedish prefabricated wooden house industry have been conducted in order to fulfill the purpose of this study. The empirical findings are then analyzed based on theory that has been collected through partly inductive, partly deductive approaches. Main results - Decision makers use different arguments to justify their strategies. Many different rationale applied translates into no clear pattern besides the one that there seems to be no clear pattern. Arguments for a rationale decision are given without analytical proof for an assumption. Some interviewees are in essence for an integrated sales force, though might also work with reps.

Denna studie har genomförts på varuhuskedjan med det fiktiva namnet RetailusAB och syftar till att ta fram ett beslutsunderlag för huruvida Retailus kan tidigarelägga de två pre-retail-aktiviteterna larmning och galgning i försörjningskedjan. Bakgrunden till studien är att Retailus har kommit till insikt att tiden och därmed kostnaden för aktiviteter som utförs på baklagren är stor och att det finns en önskan om att personalen ska kunna fokusera mer på sin kärnuppgift, att finnas tillgänglig för kunderna på försäljningsytan. Aktiviteterna utförs i dagsläget i Retailus butiker och upptar cirka 2 % av de butiksanställdas arbetstid vilket motsvarar 15 miljoner kronor i lönekostnader. Det har i studien utgåtts från tre olika scenarion där en eller båda aktiviteterna tidigareläggs till antingen Retailus distributionscentral eller till någon av Retailus leverantörer. Scenarierna har i studien utvärderats utifrån de två aspekterna totalkostnad gentemot nuläget och implementerbarhet med avseende på tidshorisont, påverkan på befintliga processer samt leveransservice. Totalkostnaden har i största möjliga mån utvärderats kvantitativt och beräknats utifrån observationer, tidsstudier i butiker, tidsstudier i simulerad miljö, olika försäljnings-och saldodata samt intervjuer med transportföretag och leverantörer. Om det bortses från faktorer som att tidmätningarna kan vara osäkra och uppgifter från både transportföretag och leverantörer inte är exakta visar det sig att det kostnadsmässigt mest lönsamma scenariot av de tre undersökta scenarierna är att tidigarelägga larmning och galgning till Retailus distributionscentral. De två övriga scenarierna, vilka innebär att endast larmning tidigareläggs till olika leverantörer, kan det inte fastlås en slutlig kostnad för på grund av brist på prisuppgifter. De kostnadsposter som visar sig vara störst är en ökning av transportkostnader från distributionscentralen till butikerna till följd av att galgade varor medför en betydande volymökning för det transporterade godset, transportkostnader till följd av returflöden av larm och galgar från butiker till distributionscentralen och till leverantör samt kostnader till följd av att fler larm och galgar behöver köpas in. Vad gäller implementering finns det problematik med samtliga scenarion men studien tyder på att det sannolikt är det scenario som har den största besparingen som också är svårast att implementera sett till samtliga av de tre aspekterna tidshorisont, påverkan på befintliga processer och leveransservice. Vad gäller de två scenarierna där leverantör larmar ligger de största utmaningarna i att upprätta returflöden av larm tillbaka till leverantören. Det har i studien utgåtts från en teori kring att det vid tidigareläggning av aktiviteterna kan dras nytta av skalfördelar då tidigareläggningen avses göras till ett skede i flödet där varor fortfarande är sortrena, till skillnad mot när de anländer till butik. Det har dock inte kunnat slås fast vid de mätningar som genomförts i studien att tidsvinster kan härledas till skalfördelar eller om det finns andra faktorer som spelar in på resultatet. I studien presenteras ett beslutsunderlag där totalkostnaden samt de viktigaste implementeringsaspekterna, både positiva och negativa, presenteras för vart och ett av de tre undersökta scenarierna.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2010. / Purpose: The aim of this research is to establish an IT outsourcing framework to enable SITA to consider key IT outsourcing elements to provide the required IT outsourcing or similar services to its customers to better fulfil its mandate as outlined in the SITA Act and other related legislation. Design/methodology/approach: The information gathered from various literature sources was analysed, evaluated and assessed to determine trends, lessons learnt and pitfalls of IT outsourcing, and IT mergers and acquisitions to develop an IT outsourcing framework and approach. Findings: The IT outsourcing framework for SITA consists of customer value drivers (motivating factors), governance model, engagement and supplier management model, and business model as the key IT outsourcing elements that SITA must consider to successfully provide the required IT outsourcing or similar services to its customers to improve its credibility. Research limitations/implications: To extend this research, more work is necessary to assess each element of the framework to determine specific actions that must be taken to leverage on economies of scale, improve productivity and IT capability within Government departments. Practical implications: This framework is intended to provide SITA with guidelines and an approach that may be used to successfully respond to the customers requests respond to the IT operations of its customers or to collaborate with the customer in providing its IT outsourcing services. Originality/value: This research will contribute towards establishing the best practices for agencies like SITA to successfully provide IT outsourcing services to Government.