This paper presents new evidence on the role of embeddedness in predicting contract duration in the context of information technology outsourcing. Contract duration is a strategic decision that aligns interests of clients and vendors, providing the benefits of business continuity to clients and incentives to undertake relationship specific investments for vendors. Considering the salience of this phenomenon, there has been limited empirical scrutiny of how contract duration is awarded. We posit that clients and vendors obtain two benefits from being embedded in an interorganizational network. First, the learning and experience accumulated from being embedded in a client-vendor network could mitigate the challenges in managing longer term contracts. Second, the network serves as a reputation system that can stratify vendors according to their trustworthiness and reliability, which is important in longer term arrangements. In particular, we attempt to make a substantive contribution to the literature by theorizing about embeddedness at four distinct levels: structural embeddedness at the node level, relational embeddedness at the dyad level, contractual embeddedness at the level of a neighborhood of contracts, and finally, positional embeddedness at the level of the entire network. We analyze a data set of 22,039 outsourcing contracts implemented between 1989 and 2008. We find that contract duration is indeed associated with structural and positional embeddedness of participant firms, with the relational embeddedness of the buyer-seller dyad, and with the duration of other contracts to which it is connected through common firms. Given the nature of our data, identification using traditional ordinary least squares based approaches is difficult given the unobserved errors clustered along two nonnested dimensions and the autocorrelation in a firm's decision (here the contract) with those of contracts in its reference group. We use a multiway cluster robust estimation and a network auto-regressive estimation to address these issues. Implications for literature and practice are discussed.
We analyze the impact of information technology (IT) on the technical efficiency of firms in the context of their observed competitive settings. Because competition can be a driver of efficiency and industries display varying degrees of competitiveness, firm-level efficiency is likely to display considerable heterogeneity. To shed light on these questions, we analyze the economic impact of IT on technical efficiency, a key component of efficiency, in heterogeneous competitive settings. Our study employs a number of econometric techniques, including a stochastic frontier and a generalized method of moments approach, on data from firms in a wide cross-section of industries. We find, after controlling for firm-level heterogeneity and potential endogeneity, that IT is positively associated with gains in technical efficiency but its impact is moderated by the degree of competition. Firms display large variation in their levels of technical efficiency partly because of the heterogeneous market competitiveness conditions they face. In more competitive industries, firms tend to deploy IT more intensively and use it more efficiently. Our study makes a distinct contribution relative to prior studies that have focused on the productivity impacts of IT while assuming perfect competition and not allowing for potential heterogeneity in firm-level efficiency. Overall, our results demonstrate that IT and competition are significant determinants of gains in technical efficiency and provide insight into how competition affects the returns to IT investment.
Companies that outsource information technology (IT) services usually focus on achieving multiple objectives. Correspondingly, outsourcing contracts typically specify a variety of metrics to measure and reward (or penalize) vendor performance. The specific types of performance metrics included in a contract strongly affect its incentive content and ultimately its outcome. One specific challenge is the measurement of performance when an outsourcing arrangement has a mix of objectives, some that are highly measurable and others that are not. Recent advances in contract theory suggest that the design of incentives for a given objective is affected by the characteristics of other objectives. However, there is little empirical work that demonstrates how relevant these "multitask" concerns are in real-world contracts. We apply contract theory to examine how objectives and incentives are related in IT outsourcing contracts that include multiple objectives with varying measurement costs. In our context, contracts generally share the objective of reducing IT costs but vary in the importance of increasing IT quality. We establish empirical results about performance measurement in IT outsourcing contracts that are consistent with recent theoretical propositions. We find that the use of strong direct incentives for a given measurable objective is negatively correlated with the presence of less measurable objectives in the contract. We show that outsourcing contracts that emphasize goals with high measurement costs employ more performance metrics than initiatives whose objectives have a lower measurement cost profile. Surprisingly, as the number of performance metrics increases, satisfactory outcomes decrease, which we explain within a multitask theory framework. Overall, our results provide empirical support for multitask principal-agent theory and important guidance in designing outsourcing contracts for complex IT services.
This paper examines the effects of IT-related spillovers on firm-level productivity improvements over a longterm horizon. In contrast, prior research has largely focused on the direct and contemporaneous impacts of IT investments. As a result, we do not fully understand how IT investments are associated with ongoing productivity improvements in future periods and how spillovers influence these gains. In this paper, we examine whether firms receive incremental benefits from IT-related spillovers and whether these spillovers lead to more persistent returns. We focus on the spillovers that accrue to firms from their interindustry transactions, especially the IT services industry. We model and estimate the impact of spillovers on long-run productivity using firmlevel data from the manufacturing, transportation, trade, and services sectors. We find that spillover impacts are highly significant, but that the magnitude and persistence of the impacts vary. Firms with high IT intensity receive greater spillover benefits from the IT services industry. Moreover, these benefits are sustained over a long-term horizon. However, the impact of IT-related spillovers does not persist in low IT intensity firms regardless of the source. Overall, our results shed light on the existence and sources of IT-related spillovers and on their important role in shaping the long-run returns to IT investment. Our results also help explain the findings of excess returns to IT investment in the IT productivity literature.
Firms are increasingly sourcing internal information systems functions from external service providers. However, there is limited empirical evidence of the economic impact of this delivery option and, more specifically, of the productivity gains accruing to firms that have outsourced. Moreover, there is little evidence of the role and contributions of the individual mechanisms by which service providers create value for client firms. We are particularly interested in whether client firms benefit from the accumulated knowledge held by information technology (IT) service firms. In this paper, we examine the impact of IT outsourcing on the productivity of firms that choose this mode of services delivery focusing, on the role of IT-related knowledge. Since firms self-select into their optimal sourcing mode, we use a variety of econometric techniques including propensity scorebased matching and switching regression to control for potential bias arising from endogenously determined sourcing modes. We demonstrate that IT outsourcing does lead to productivity gains for firms that select this mode of service delivery. Our results also suggest that IT-related knowledge held by IT services vendors enables these productivity gains, the magnitude of which is moderated by a firm's IT intensity. Moreover, the value of outsourcing to a client firm increases with its propensity for outsourcing, which in turn depends on firm-specific attributes including efficiency level, financial leverage, and variability in business conditions. Our analyses also show that firms that outsource have been able to achieve additional productivity gains from contracting out compared with their counterfactuals.
As firms seek to improve coordination through the use of electronic interorganizational systems (IOS), open standards are becoming increasingly important. To better understand the process of standards diffusion, we investigate firms' migration from proprietary or less-open IOS (i.e., electronic data interchange or EDI) to open-standard IOS (i.e., the Internet). Theoretical work in economics suggests that network effects are a determinant of network adoption, yet the extant literature falls short of empirical testing of the theory. We develop a conceptual model that features network effects, expected benefits, and adoption costs as prominent antecedents. We examine the model on a large dataset of 1,394 firms. The empirical results demonstrate the significant impacts of network effects on open-standard IOS adoption. We find that adoption costs are a significant barrier to open-standard IOS adoption, but EDI users and nonusers treat this very differently: EDI users are much more sensitive to the costs of switching to the new standard. This finding illustrates that experience with older standards may create switching costs and make it difficult to shift to open and potentially better standards, a phenomenon called "excess inertia" in technology change. Further testing the underlying factors that contribute to network effects and adoption costs, we find that trading community influence is a key driver of network effects, while managerial complexity, as opposed to financial costs, is a key determinant of adoption costs. Overall we believe that this study, based on a rigorous empirical analysis of a unique international dataset, provides valuable insights into a set of key factors that influence standards diffusion.
Despite the importance to researchers, managers, and policy makers of how information technology (IT) contributes to organizational performance, there is uncertainty and debate about what we know and don't know. A review of the literature reveals that studies examining the association between information technology and organizational performance are divergent in how they conceptualize key constructs and their interrelationships. We develop a model of IT business value based on the resource-based view of the firm that integrates the various strands of research into a single framework. We apply the integrative model to synthesize what is known about IT business value and guide future research by developing propositions and suggesting a research agenda. A principal finding is that IT is valuable, but the extent and dimensions are dependent upon internal and external factors, including complementary organizational resources of the firm and its trading partners, as well as the competitive and macro environment. Our analysis provides a blueprint to guide future research and facilitate knowledge accumulation and creation concerning the organizational performance impacts of information technology.
Previous research has demonstrated that the production of information services can be characterized at the aggregate economy-wide level by the Cobb-Douglas production function. However, the underlying production process at the firm level has not yet been ascertained. The objective of this paper is to determine the form of the production process for information systems services at the firm level by conducting an empirical analysis of IS budget data. The production of information services is modeled using a production function with two inputs, hardware and personnel. We estimate various econometric specifications to determine several characteristics of the provision of information services, including the allocation of the information systems budget to its two largest components--hardware and personnel--and its implications for the form of the production function. After controlling for industry sector, we find that the ratio of personnel to hardware is independent of scale, which indicates a homothetic production function. We also find that the ratio of factor shares is constant with time, consistent with the Cobb-Douglas production function. We conclude that the underlying form of the production function is the same at the level of both the firm and the economy. Our analysis demonstrates how the application of production theory to the production of information services can yield useful insights from both a theoretical and managerial perspective.
Despite significant progress in evaluating the productivity payoffs from information technology (IT), the inability of traditional firm-level economic analysis to account fully for the intangible impacts of IT has led to calls for a more inclusive and comprehensive approach to measuring IT business value. In response to this call, the authors develop a process-oriented model to assess the impacts of IT on critical business activities within the value chain. Their model incorporates corporate goals for IT and management practices as key determinants of realized IT payoffs. Using survey data from 304 business executives worldwide, they found that corporate goals for IT can be classified into one of four types: unfocused, operations focus, market focus, and dual focus. Their analysis confirms that these goals are useful indicators of payoffs from IT in that executives in firms with more focused goals for IT perceive greater payoffs from IT across the value chain. In addition, the authors found that management practices such as strategic alignment and IT investment evaluation contribute to higher perceived levels of IT business value.
Innovation in information technology is well established in developed nations; newly industrializing and developing nations have been creating governmental interventions to accelerate IT innovation within their borders. The lack of coherent policy advice for creating government policy for IT innovation signals a shortfall in research understanding of the role of government institutions, and institutions more broadly, in IT innovation. This paper makes three points. First, long-established intellectual perspectives on innovation from neoclassical economics and organization theory are inadequate to explain the dynamics of actual innovative change in the IT domain. A broader view adopted from economic history and the new institutionalism in sociology provides a stronger base for understanding the role of institutions in IT innovation. Second, institutional intervention in IT innovation can be constructed at the intersection of the influence and regulatory powers of institutions and the ideologies of supply-push and demand-pull models of innovation. Examples of such analysis are provided. Third, institutional policy formation regarding IT innovation is facilitated by an understanding of the multifaceted role of institutions in the innovative process, and on the contingencies governing any given institution/innovation mix.
Collopy, Adya and Armstrong (1994) (CAA) advocate the use of atheoretical "black box" extrapolation techniques to forecast information systems spending. In this paper, we contrast this approach with the positive modeling approach of Gurbaxani and Mendelson (1990), where the primary focus is on explanation based on economics and innovation diffusion theory. We argue that the objectives and premises of extrapolation techniques are so fundamentally different from those of positive modeling that the evaluation of positive models using the criteria of "black box" forecasting approaches is inadequate. We further show that even if one were to accept CAA's premises, their results are stilt inferior. Our results refute CAA's claim that linear trend extrapolations are appropriate for forecasting future IS spending and demonstrate the risks of ignoring the guidance of theory.
This paper develops a model of the growth of information systems expenditures in the United States. The model incorporates two major factors that influence the rate and pattern of spending growth--the diffusion of technological innovation and the effect of price on the demand for computing. Traditional studies have focused on the role of innovation while ignoring the effects of price on the growth process. We show that while information systems expenses initially grew following an S-curve, more recent growth has converged to an exponential pattern. These patterns are consistent with our integrative price-adjusted S-curve growth model.