The Impact of Process Standardization on Business Process Outsourcing Success

Kim Wuellenweber (), Wolfgang Koenig (), Daniel Beimborn () and Tim Weitzel ()
Additional contact information
Kim Wuellenweber: Johann Wolfgang Goethe University
Wolfgang Koenig: Johann Wolfgang Goethe University
Daniel Beimborn: University of Bamberg
Tim Weitzel: University of Bamberg

A chapter in Information Systems Outsourcing, 2009, pp 527-548 from Springer

Abstract: It seems a safe bet to say that process standardization is desirable (Lee & Kim, 1997; Manrodt & Vitasek, 2004) and, particularly in service industries, offers technical interchangeability, compliance with regulations, and improved customer confidence (de Vries, 1999). Also, many expect that standardized business processes are better to outsource and there are empirical indications that business process standardization reduces the risks of BPO (Wüllenweber & Weitzel, 2007). Yet, despite the importance of both areas — process standards and outsourcing — neither the outsourcing nor standardization literature has so far offered a conclusive picture of the value of process standardization to business process outsourcing (BPO). In this paper, our overall research question thus is: What is the impact of business process standardization on BPO success? We argue that process standardization has a direct and positive production cost effect on BPO success, since economies of scale and skill can be achieved more easily. Further, we expect an indirect and positive effect via improved contractual and relational governance means: process standardization allows defining clear and precise process output objectives to be met by the service provider. On the other side, uniformity of process activities facilitates communication and coordination between exchange partners. Our results provide strong evidence that process characteristics — such as the degree of standardization — are an important prerequisite for BPO ventures.

Keywords: Partial Little Square; Business Process; Process Standardization; Common Method Bias; Exchange Partner (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:sprchp:978-3-540-88851-2_23

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783540888512

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-88851-2_23

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().