A process explanation of the effects of institutional distance between parties in outsourced information systems development projects

Gregory Vial and Suzanne Rivard

European Journal of Information Systems, 2016, vol. 25, issue 5, 448-464

Abstract: Outsourced information systems development (OISD) projects are challenging endeavors, and the literature suggests differences between the parties involved as critical hinderers of such projects. Using institutional theory as a foundational theory, we propose a process explanation of the effects of differences between parties in OISD projects. Our explanation relies on the interaction of four components: (1) the IS development and project management institutional profiles of the parties involved; (2) the institutional distance between practices within these profiles; (3) instances of conflicting institutional demands when institutional distance becomes salient; and (4) the repertoire of institutional strategic responses available to parties to address those instances. We suggest that the constitutive elements of institutional distance and the degree to which parties envision their collaboration beyond the project at hand contribute to explaining the enactment of strategic responses. Accounting for the fact that practices, as well as the institutional logics that drive their enactment, may differ between parties, we make a theoretical contribution to the literature on OISD by building a fine-grained explanation of the effects of differences between parties in OISD projects.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/s41303-016-0021-2 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:tjisxx:v:25:y:2016:i:5:p:448-464

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjis20

DOI: 10.1057/s41303-016-0021-2

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Information Systems is currently edited by Par Agerfalk

More articles in European Journal of Information Systems from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().