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Three essays on information technology sourcing : a multi-level perspective

Despite the amount of literature on the antecedents and outcomes of IT outsourcing, the vast majority of this research has focused on factors at the firm level. Environmental factors such as industry and country characteristics have received little attention. Environmental factors should be taken into account in IT outsourcing research because firms are open systems and their behaviors are significantly influenced by material-resource and institutional environments. Moreover, previous research at the firm level has not evaluated the effectiveness of IT outsourcing and insourcing in terms of how they create value for firms. To address the paucity of macro-level research in IT outsourcing as well as to augment our knowledge at the firm level, this thesis investigates IT outsourcing issues at three levels, namely, at the firm, industry, and country level. More specifically, I expand firm-level research by jointly examining the impacts of IT outsourcing and insourcing on IT-enabled organizational capabilities and firm performance (Essay #1). I also investigate the roles of industry-level factors such as munificence, dynamism, concentration, and capital intensity (Essay #2) and country-level variables such as the maturity of the IT-related legal system, generalized trust, uncertainty avoidance, Internet penetration, and the maturity of the IT outsourcing market of a country (Essay #3) in the diffusion of IT outsourcing practice.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.115614
Date January 2008
CreatorsQu, Wen Guang.
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageDoctor of Philosophy (Desautels Faculty of Management.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 003135124, proquestno: AAINR66566, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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