Organizational agility through outsourcing: Roles of IT alignment, cloud computing and knowledge transfer

Chun-Ping Deng, Tao Wang, Thompson S.H. Teo and Qi Song

International Journal of Information Management, 2021, vol. 60, issue C

Abstract: This study introduces the concept of outsourcing appropriation based on adaptive structuration theory (AST) to explore how organizations attain IT-dependent organizational agility through outsourcing appropriation. It examines the mediating role of IT alignment and the moderating roles of the adoption of cloud computing and knowledge transfer. The proposed model was tested using survey data from a sample of 170 IT executives. Our results indicate that the consensus of appropriation (COA) and faithfulness of appropriation (FOA) are positively associated with IT-dependent organizational agility, and the relationships are partially mediated by IT alignment. When adoption of cloud computing is high, the positive relationship between IT alignment and IT-dependent organizational agility becomes stronger than when it is low. Interestingly, results also show that the moderating roles of the transfer of explicit knowledge and transfer of tacit knowledge in the relationship between outsourcing appropriation and IT-dependent organizational agility vary significantly. The transfer of explicit knowledge negatively moderates the relationship between COA and agility. The transfer of tacit knowledge positively moderates the relationship between FOA and agility. These findings deepen our understanding of how organizations gain IT-dependent organizational agility in the context of IT outsourcing.

Keywords: IT-dependent organizational agility; Outsourcing appropriation; IT alignment; Cloud computing adoption; Knowledge transfer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401221000785
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ininma:v:60:y:2021:i:c:s0268401221000785

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2021.102385

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Information Management is currently edited by Yogesh K. Dwivedi

More articles in International Journal of Information Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().