none / The term “service orientation” has been explained in different ways in the literature and is often associated with terms such as market orientation, customer orientation, and being customer centered—all while never deviating from the firm’s core purpose—in order to satisfy customers’ needs and offer services that they want. A service-oriented organization focuses on what customers really need and want in order to make them feel satisfied. Considerable research has shown that organizations are more successful when they focus on a service orientation. Information technology plays an important role in the development of business orientation. Cases like Walmart involve such things as the application of the barcode, RFID, and a Continuous Replenishment System to ensure that the company has the right product shipped on time, to any store in the world. Information technologies with different functions, including business integration, business analysis, mobile communication, and collaboration, have played different roles in enabling service orientation in a firm. On the other hand, industries with different customer requirements have applied these functions in different ways. There is a need for a broad understanding of how these diverse kinds of information technologies enable service orientation in various types of firms. The study attempts to build insights about what a service-oriented organization is and what the roles information technology plays in a service-oriented organization to satisfy customers’ needs and wants. First, we study the characteristics of service orientations, then we analyze the use of information technology in these kinds of organizations. Next, multiple case studies are conducted to trace IT use in these organizations. Based on cross-industry and cross-case analysis, we examine the motivation for IT use for service orientation, the management of IT adoption, the difference of the IT role to enable service orientation in organizations, and the paths of IT use for service orientation in different industries.

A crescente importância do mercado de serviços terceirizados de TI no Brasil e o interesse por pesquisas nesse tema no Brasil e em nível mundial, são os principais argumentos que justificam a realização deste estudo. Este trabalho teve por objetivo entender questões que envolvem os aspectos considerados em decisões de terceirização de funções de TI em empresas brasileiras, visão ainda pouco explorada na literatura. Para que o objetivo fosse atingido, foram propostas quatro questões de pesquisa respondidas utilizando-se de uma revisão bibliográfica, simulação e dois surveys. Os resultados encontrados permitiram identificar um modelo final que facilita um melhor entendimento sobre como a decisão de terceirização é tomada em empresas brasileiras. Tal modelo engloba seis aspectos de decisão usualmente considerados pelas empresas, o inter-relacionamento entre estes aspectos e mostra fatores externos que contribuem para a definição do nível de importância de cada aspecto na decisão. Como produto secundário, a discussão dos resultados encontrados frente à literatura que trata do tema terceirização em TI validou resultados já apresentados por outros autores e, gerou a necessidade de estudos futuros ao encontrar divergências. Do ponto de vista prático, o trabalho apresenta importante contribuição, pois ajudou a estruturar o processo de decisão de terceirização de funções de TI. / The growing importance of IT service market in Brazil and the interest for researches in this area in Brazil and worldwide are the main arguments that justifies the development of this study. The objective of this work was to understand the issues that involve the aspects considered on IT outsourcing decisions in Brazilian companies, theme that is not well explored in the literature. To achieve this objective, it was proposed four research questions answered by a bibliographic revision, simulation and two surveys. The founded results allowed the identification of a final model that facilitates a better understanding about how outsourcing decision making process occurs in Brazilian companies. This model considers six decisions aspects usually considered by the companies, the inter-relationship between this aspects and shows external factors that contributes to the definition of the importance level of each of these aspects in the decision making process. As secondary product, the discussion of the founded results against the literature that covers IT outsource theme, validated the results already presented by other authors and created the need of future researches by presenting some different results. From practicing stand point, this work presents an important contribution, by helping to structure the IT outsourcing decision making process.

A crescente importância do mercado de serviços terceirizados de TI no Brasil e o interesse por pesquisas nesse tema no Brasil e em nível mundial, são os principais argumentos que justificam a realização deste estudo. Este trabalho teve por objetivo entender questões que envolvem os aspectos considerados em decisões de terceirização de funções de TI em empresas brasileiras, visão ainda pouco explorada na literatura. Para que o objetivo fosse atingido, foram propostas quatro questões de pesquisa respondidas utilizando-se de uma revisão bibliográfica, simulação e dois surveys. Os resultados encontrados permitiram identificar um modelo final que facilita um melhor entendimento sobre como a decisão de terceirização é tomada em empresas brasileiras. Tal modelo engloba seis aspectos de decisão usualmente considerados pelas empresas, o inter-relacionamento entre estes aspectos e mostra fatores externos que contribuem para a definição do nível de importância de cada aspecto na decisão. Como produto secundário, a discussão dos resultados encontrados frente à literatura que trata do tema terceirização em TI validou resultados já apresentados por outros autores e, gerou a necessidade de estudos futuros ao encontrar divergências. Do ponto de vista prático, o trabalho apresenta importante contribuição, pois ajudou a estruturar o processo de decisão de terceirização de funções de TI. / The growing importance of IT service market in Brazil and the interest for researches in this area in Brazil and worldwide are the main arguments that justifies the development of this study. The objective of this work was to understand the issues that involve the aspects considered on IT outsourcing decisions in Brazilian companies, theme that is not well explored in the literature. To achieve this objective, it was proposed four research questions answered by a bibliographic revision, simulation and two surveys. The founded results allowed the identification of a final model that facilitates a better understanding about how outsourcing decision making process occurs in Brazilian companies. This model considers six decisions aspects usually considered by the companies, the inter-relationship between this aspects and shows external factors that contributes to the definition of the importance level of each of these aspects in the decision making process. As secondary product, the discussion of the founded results against the literature that covers IT outsource theme, validated the results already presented by other authors and created the need of future researches by presenting some different results. From practicing stand point, this work presents an important contribution, by helping to structure the IT outsourcing decision making process.