CONSIDERING THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF OUTSOURCING RELATIONSHIP QUALITY

Outsourcing relationship quality (ORQ) has shown to be an important construct in previous research on outsourcing effectiveness. But, while there are various works that have conceptualized and operationalized ORQ as a rich and multi-dimensional construct, other studies which consider ORQ as (usually mediating) component of their theoretical models make hardly use of those works but often use less rich constructs. The research on hand attempts bridging the gap between those two groups of works. A multi-dimensional ORQ construct is used to evaluate the relative importance of different ORQ dimensions, such as commitment, trust, etc., in regard to different dimensions of outsourcing success (overall satisfaction, goal achievement, service quality). For example, while many studies use trust as proxy for ORQ, our study shows that, depending on the outcome variable, other ORQ dimensions might be more relevant and should be used instead or additionally. Thus, the main contribution is identifying those ORQ dimensions which are most relevant regarding different outsourcing success variables. Future studies on outsourcing success factors will have a better ground to argue for or against using certain ORQ dimensions in their studies. Moreover, the study sensitizes managers for different distinct ORQ dimensions and their importance for a successful outsourcing relationship

Christians in Gilgit: negotiating subalternity and citizenship

Christians in Gilgit: Negotiating subalternity and citizenshi

Christians in Gilgit: Negotiating subalternity and citizenship

Christians in Gilgit: Negotiating subalternity and citizenshi

Any information on what happened to Betsy [Fr. Anselm Keefe\u27s Great Dane]?

Abbot Pennings answers questions about Fr. Anselm Keefe\u27s dogs on campus, archived from the SNC website

Exploring SOA’s Potential For Business Process Outsourcing

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) represents an organizational change which results in an e-Business relationship between a firm and an outsourcing service provider. This paper analyzes whether and how a modular IT architecture - service-oriented architecture (SOA), in particular - contributes to the potential of BPO by increasing the benefits and reducing the costs. This research question is investigated using a multi-case study approach based on six different firms which have adopted SOA. Three of them have already made BPO experiences based on SOA and all confirm SOA’s positive impact on BPO. Besides identifying success factors, counter intuitive results and new research opportunities are identified

Critical Success Factors of Digital Business Strategy

Digitalization does fundamentally impact firms’ strategy develop-ment. With the fusion of IT and business strategy, Digital Business Strategy (DBS) creates the foundation for digital business models [1]. In this paper, we develop a DBS framework, based on a structured review of 21 industry reports. From this analysis, we yield 8 generic dimensions with a total of 40 critical suc-cess factors (CSFs) for DBS. The CSFs represent a rich set of actions specific to DBS and to the design of business models in the digital business environment. The discussion shows that academic research is lagging behind in contributing to DBS. Future research is suggested to further formalize the concept of DBS and to create a better understanding about how firms can successfully establish DBS

Affordance Perception Through a Digital Mindset: A Dual Process Theory Perspective

As digital technologies offer increasingly open and flexible affordances, organizations must understand how employees discover and utilize them to maximize their potential. While prior research has shown that technology-specific traits can impact affordance per-ception, we propose that affordance perception is affected by an individual’s general digi-tal mindset, which in turn determines how individuals make sense of pervasive digital technologies. Drawing on the dual process theory of human cognition and established af-fordance categories (canonical and non-canonical), we conducted a four-phase online experiment involving 189 users of Microsoft PowerPoint. Our study, which used an implicit association tests, a sorting approach, and a survey, revealed that an individual’s digital mindset significantly influences unconscious and conscious perceptions of non-canonical affordances but not canonical ones. We contribute by extending the affordance theory in IS, indicating that affordance perception can be seen as dual processes dependent on in-dividual traits

A Cognitive Conveyor for Digital Innovation - Definition and Conceptualization of the Digital Mindset

Notwithstanding the ubiquitous notion of the ‘digital mindset’ as a central way of thinking in digitalization, the literature lacks an unambiguous and integrative definition that allows further conceptualization of the phenomenon in a detailed manner. This paper defines and conceptualizes the digital mindset in a digital innovation context by an integration of different psychological perspectives and systematic analysis of digital innovation literature, cross-validated through an inductive expert survey (n=50). As a result, a coherent definition and conceptualization with 11 thinking patterns contribute to the research of the human side of digitalization and pave the way for future research avenues. Concluding our work, we highlight overlaps and draw parallels to related theoretical IS concepts and link our results to extant findings of IS research

Informal Knowledge Networks: Toward a Community-Engineering Framework

The problems knowledge workers face today are dynamic, unstructured, highly complex, and often cannot be fully explicated. Such moving targets require different problem solving capabilities. Because abstract information is less valuable in this type of environment, knowledge workers have to utilize channels other than handbooks. Hence, corporate knowledge networks again are at the top of the research agenda. For a knowledge worker, access to knowledgeable colleagues, rather than access to large databases, becomes the important factor. In such networks, the question of which managerial actions are appropriate for successful community development ( i.e., supporting the actors) arises. Unfortunately, today’s community engineering practices are often characterized by a gross simplification and strong technological focus rather than modeling the impact of managerial actions before taking them. As part of a larger research project, this paper addresses topological structures as an action variable of community engineering. A computer-based simulation model is introduced and applied to real-life data from over 800 students and staff of the Economics and Business Administration Department at Frankfurt University, Germany