In recent years, people have paid much attention to IS functions outsourcing in organizations. Outsourcing of information system (IS) functions is growing rapidly. Most of the researchers draw on the resource-dependence theory, transaction-cost theory, and agent cost theory to conduct their studies from the economic viewpoint. Economic theories aim at explaining the characteristics of governance or contract. However, explaining the relationship between organizations from a purely economic point of view is unjustifiable because inter-organizational relationships also involve the social learning experiences based on specific sequential interactions. While IS outsourcing can generally be divided into three stages, such as evaluation stage before outsourcing, outsourcing on-going stage, and outsourcing ending stage. The purpose of this study, departing from the social viewpoint, intends to use the social theories to investigate the affecting factors of outsourcing partnerships between firm and the IS functions outsourcing service providers in the outsourcing on-going stage. This study employs social exchange theory to establish the research model. In addition, the triangulation research method is also adopted to verify the research model. First of all, the research model derived from social exchange theory has been revised according to the result of multiple-case deeply interview. Then, the survey research is included to verify the revised research model and test the 12 hypotheses. Finally, among these 12 hypotheses, 11 of them are supported statistically significant and one hypothesis was rejected. The main contribution of this study to academia is to provide a research model of the IS functions outsourcing partnerships to the future researchers who are interested in this domain. Besides, practically speaking, the firm can also adopt the study outcome to ensure the success of the IS functions outsourcing.

Post-Project Review On Outsourcing Management -- The Case Of National Tax Due to the decreased budget in recent years, our government is pushing forward for outsourcing of the whole process on IT (IT,Information Itecnology) Systems. To cut cost in the developmental stage, to facilitate the integration and sharing of the resources on IT Systems, and to assist the IT Systems industries are the reasons for the outsourcing. The outsourcing is not limited to the application software on IT Systems, but also includes hardware, network equipments and personnel support. In Taiwan, although there was some existing cases in the past, but seldom involved outsourcing of the whole system . ¡§Post-Project Review On Outsourcing Management - The Case Of National Tax.¡¨ is a very good example for the outsourcing of the whole system from the government. In that project, it covered great areas and involved the integration of different groups and units. So, there are many topics worthy of exploring and studying in that project. For the research of the whole system outsourcing, some scholar key in on the successful outcomes, others focus on the project management point of view. The studies from the angle of post-project review process are scarce. The information gathered from the post-project review process are very important, it could serve as reference for government¡¦s future outsourcing projects. Therefore, the subject of this research is focused on the post-project review process. In order to adjust themselves to meet the trend in government projects outsourcing, the companies doing business in the field of Information Technology System Integration in Taiwan are investing heavily, regardless of costs, in offering every possible resources to create the best business opportunities in the future for themselves, and further winning the bid for the outsourcing projects. However, the inexperienced project management in this field and also the lack of prior experience to learn from has created a difficult environment for companies to take on the tasks. While executing the projects, they often act like a rookie on the field or walking on thin ice, one step at a time. Because the lack of precedent to follow, quite often one will encounter unexpected incidents while executing the projects, and this will lead to a huge jump in costs, therefore losing the grip on cost-control mechanism severely. Also in the case of information system outsourcing, the listed products, equipments and services from the vendors can be only considered as references; one must measures the invisible demands from customers on ¡§service satisfaction¡¨. So, one cannot make decision just based on vendors opinions, otherwise, it will just increase the negotiation costs, equipments or miscellaneous expenditures. Using this research as an example, the case involved an outsourcing bid for ¡§Tax information System Outsourcing Plan ¡V National Tax Outsourcing Service¡¨ project from the Bureau of National Tax, Department of Treasury in 1999. The Mitac Inc. won the bid for $1,830,000,000 New Taiwan dollars as a five years integrated outsourcing project. But in the company¡¦s 2001 financial report, they listed a loss of $480,000,000 New Taiwan dollars due to the project. This example made clear that one can no longer compare nowadays outsourcing projects with the old integrated projects. Through the author¡¦s first-hand knowledge of many companies, it was found that due to the complexity of tasks and deadline pressure during the executing of the outsourcing projects, no one could effectively put together in a systematic way of task flowcharts and experiences for future references. The Mitac case is in the finishing stage, so this research is focused on the post-project review, re-examine various task flowcharts, organize and structure them into a systematic way. By doing so, it provides reference information that would benefit corporate managers for their pre-project evaluation in the future. It also provides a track that people can follow when they carry out future outsourcing projects.

Postponement, which is a stategy in the area of supply chain management, has a long history of practical applications as well as academic literature. However, most existing studies are conceptual and the main method of empiprical study is case study, which leads to the empirical findings are not able to be generalized to other companies or industries. In addition, past empirical researches are almost entirely conducted in the Western countries. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the motivations, current situations, facilitators and and results of postponement in Greater China (including Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). This study conducted two interviews and a questionnaire survey by e-mail across three industries. The result indicated that postponement application in Greater China was growing and the degree of postponement application was higher than the previous evidences in the West regions. Rather, environmental uncertainty, administrative factors, and IS maturity had positive effects on postponement application. In addition, industry characteristics would also affect the types of postponement strategy used. As to the results of applying postponement, postponement indeed raises company performances, but it is not necessary to facilitate companies outsource operations activities.

Now, companies all around the world are facing growing and fierce business competition. In order to save costs and raise revenues, companies adopt more flexible and temporary strategy to hire employees, which called ¡§atypical employment¡¨. This research applied the methodology of ¡§narrative inquiry¡¨ to discuss my experience as atypical worker. As both a story-teller and a student, I want to write down what I had experienced, what I had observed and what I had been inspired. Hope what I learned could bring something new and different to the industry and the academic circle. Before entering NSYSU, I had worked at Acer Incorporated as a business assistant for two years and it was also my first job. At that time, the concept of dispatched worker was not well-known and I took the job ignorantly. In Acer, I had been through two different positions and it allowed me to have varied views and know better about atypical employment in Acer. Through pondering my past experience and writing my thesis, here are my research goals and findings. First, reexamine what I had learned and discovered as an atypical worker, employ ¡§narrative inquiry¡¨ to record the story and try to gain some valuable introspection. Second, provide companies and dispatched agencies which were interested in ¡§atypical employment¡¨ with details, obstacles and problems that might happened in atypical employment. Last but not least, as an exploratory study, supply first-hand materials for the academic circle to discover more useful and worthy phenomenon or information to peruse.

Strategic IT outsourcing decisions have attracted attentions from the researchers and practitioners for over a decade. However, although there were many researchers emphasizing the ¡§content¡¨ of information technology, few were focusing on the ¡§distribution¡¨ issues. Lee, Huynh et al. (2003) identified seven patterns in the outsourcing research literature from a historical evolutionary perspective. These patterns, which can serve as areas of inquiries in the domain of IT outsourcing research, include: outsourcing decision (to make or to buy), outsourcing motivation, scope of outsourcing, performance assessment, insourcing (the variant of outsourcing), outsourcing contract, and outsourcing partnership. This research focuses on the areas of outsourcing contract and partnerships at the higher end of the evolutionary loop, but would refer to the other areas of IT outsourcing research as needed. Mahnke, Overby and Van (2005) draw on concept-centric literature review approach (Meta-analysis approach) to review 19 empirical IT outsourcing research between 1995-2002. They report their findings of the theoretical perspectives used in these empirical studies, which include transaction cost economics, competence perspective and relational view. Building on their endeavor, my meta-analysis review in this research study will focus on empirical IT outsourcing studies conducted after 2002, especially on empirical research centered on IT outsourcing contract and partnering issues that have not been extensively reviewed by Mahnke et al. and other researchers. Drawing on concept-centric literature review approach suggested by Webster and Watson (2002) in MIS Quarterly, this research study will integrate cross-field knowledge on IT outsourcing contracts and partnerships issues, and thus infer to media firms management. Our key findings includes the discussion between theories and empirical research, knowledge integration of outsourcing contract and outsourcing partnerships, comparison of empirical studies content, and other important concepts. Besides, we combine our findings and the three main theories in IT outsourcing field: TCE, RBV, and RV, and thus made the integrated theoretical framework. Finally, we infer our integrated theoretical framework to media firms¡¦ management.

The current IT manpower outsourcing business growing soon, this is a case study of a electronic corporate IT department, and understand the current status of IT specialists dispatching and outsourcing in IT department. The main study is Dispatching and Outsourcing IT specialists, in order to explore the work motivation of IT specialists engage in the dispatching and outsourcing job, and the issue and effect in IT departments. Conclusions of this study would like to provide a reference to the IT department of related industries for the application of outsourcing, The main conclusions of the study are as follows: 1. The working motivation of IT specialists mostly based on personal career planning. And the feeling of fairness of the dispatching job and psychological contract breach about transferred to regular works would reduce the IT specialists¡¦ working motivation. 2. IT specialists engaged in outsourcing job were mostly in line with the company's business services, when they got low organization support and coun¡¦t fill the psychological need about ability to be recognized, the working motivation would be reduced. 3. For the long term, IT department hired dispatching IT specialists for saving HR cost, and reach the target in current organization. 4. Based on professional recognition, IT specialists were maladaptive in the human dispatching system that was low unique and value, and companies hired dispatching workers with cognitive bias would cause IT specialists to feel unfair, and created many issues. 5. IT department hired dispatching and outsourcing IT specialists to excute software project, but the requirement change was out of control caused the project scope extended without limitation, schedule delayed and cost raised.

<p>Background – Offshore outsourcing is to source activities that were previously produced in-house. It is a concept that has become a trend the last years and its advantages are often taken for granted. Many firms believe that a delegation of the production to low-cost countries enhances their competitiveness and that they get closer to new markets. This might instead be on the expense of the Swedish employment and investments. Some firms chose not to delegate parts of their production but can still stay competitive in their market.</p><p>Purpose – The purpose with this thesis is to investigate what lies behind small firm’s strategies not to use offshore outsourcing.</p><p>Frame of References – A strategy is to position the firm in its competitive market. The firm has to defend their position in their market to stay competitive. Overall cost leadership and differentiation are two common strategies where the firm has to perform more efficiently than their competitors. A strategy makes the firm unique and by that achieving competitive advantage. A strategy can be to use offshore outsourcing. The main reasons for offshore outsourcing are to lower costs, increase the firm focus, and to raise the innovation ability. Several disadvantages can also be identified about offshore outsourcing: the dependence on external suppliers, and loss of control over activities, and the possibility of a failing relationship and/or decrease of morale among workers.</p><p>Method – The method chosen for this thesis is a qualitative study. Semi-structured interviewed were conducted with three small firms. They were personal interviews with open-ended questions.</p><p>Conclusions – The firm sees their in-house capabilities and tries to develop them before deciding to offshore outsource. Firms that do not offshore outsource are less driven by material and cheap labour and feel that it is important to consider the overall costs. Swedish occupations will be lost as a consequence of offshore outsourcing and will generate serious consequences for the Swedish labour market. Knowledge and competences are high in firms that do not use offshore outsourcing. It is developed within the firm and it is creates a competitive advantage.</p>

<p>Fallföretagen har uppmärksammat de flesta risker som teorin behandlar och har även hanterat dessa risker i stor utsträckning enligt teorin. Vi har analyserat fram fem grundlä'ggande orsaker till varför företagen hanterar riskerna som uppstår vid outsourcing av produktion på det sätt de gör. Dessa är nivå av outsourcing, typ av produktion som outsourcas, hur stor kund företaget är hos sina leverantörer, geografiskt avstånd till leverantörerna och relationer till leverantörerna</p>

Thesis (doctoral)--European Business School, International University Schloss Reichartshausen, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (SpringerLink, viewed Dec. 3, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Techn. Universiẗat, Darmstadt, 2008.