Research On Decision Models And Simulation For It Outsourcing In Enterprise

With the rapid development of information technology and pervasive adoption of IT in enterprises, IT outsourcing has become an importance IT management model. This dissertation focuses on complexity and dynamic in the IT outsourcing decision process based on a new theory lens: Complex Adaptive System (CAS), and integrating resource-based theory (RBT) and transaction cost theory (TCT) perspectives. It has explored the key factors and dimensions in IT outsourcing process, and construct multi-stage IT outsourcing decision model. By using multiple methods and tools, including literature meta-analysis, survey, ANP and multi-agent computer simulation, the dissertation addresses on IT outsourcing adoption decision model, IT outsourcing design, CSFs for IT outsourcing implementation stage etc., and then simulates IT outsourcing triggering mechanism and vendors selective and evaluate process using Repast toolkit. The main work includes 4 parts.The first part covers chapter 1 and 2. It mainly introduces the theoretical basis, reviews the literature and puts forward the research problem. Firstly, it studies the research background and urgent issues; secondly, it describes IT outsourcing development background and sums up its trend; then reviews IT outsourcing literature, compares IT outsourcing research between Chinese journal papers and English journal papers; at last, it defines research scope and object: IT outsourcing decision and analyses IT outsourcing decision characteristics.The second part covers chapter 3. It mainly constructs IT outsourcing decision process model by using multi-theories approach. There are three research roadmaps; one is to deduce IT outsourcing decision frameworks respectively from TCT and RBT perspectives, and to extend the RBT perspective by IT resource limit to competitive. Further, it presents the differences and complementation between TCT and RBT, and then develops an integrate model for IT outsourcing decision; the other is to analyze the complexity adaptive characteristics of IT outsourcing based on CAS, and to analyze IT outsourcing decision agent using"stimulate-feedback"model; and another one is to constructe IT outsourcing decision process model by using the three theories lens. This part is the basis of successive research in the dissertation.The third part covers chapter 4, 5 and 6. It's the core part of the dissertation which studies IT outsourcing adoption, IT outsourcing design, and CSFs of IT Outsourcing implementation stage. Firstly, it samples Chinese firms to investigate the key influence factors by using structure questionnaire and firms'interview, to valid IT outsourcing adoption model, and then two dimensions of IT outsourcing decision are presented, informationization stage and sectors IT intensive. Secondly, it analyzes the multiple dimensions of IT outsourcing design, and constructs ANP model of IT outsourcing design, and then gives a case by using SD software. It analyzes the relationship between IT outsourcing scope decision and vendors selective, and gives the selective flow and multiple criteries for IT outsourcing vendors'decision. Thirdly, it deduces two types of IT outsourcing: substitution-based IT outsourcing and abstention-based IT outsourcing, and gives the influencing factors. In addition, it identifies CSFs for IT outsourcing implementation stage and analyzes multi-agent evaluation for IT outsourcing.The fourth part covers chapter 7 and 8. It focuses on the modeling and simulation of IT outsourcing decision. It discusses the theory and method for modeling and simulation of complex system and describes the idea and steps of modeling and simulation. Based on Repast toolkit, it simulates IT outsourcing adoption decision triggering mechanism and vendors selective and evaluation process. The simulation results not only verify the research conclusions in the former parts, but also show the path dependence of IT outsourcing decision, including history path dependence and relationship dependence. Finally, the chapter 8 concludes with implications for academics and practitioners, and a discussion of future research directions.The dissertation has made the contributions as following. (1) It develops an integrating process model for IT outsourcing decision from multi-theory lens, which gives a new theory perspective and framework. (2) It samples Chinese firms to analyze IT outsourcing adoption decision that incorporates economic determinants and strategic determinants. This study fills a gap in the literature because no previous work has used empirical research to survey factors influencing Chinese firms'adoption of IT outsourcing, and the result also shows Chinese firms'informationization stage is the special factor comparing with previous works. (3) It presents multiple framework of IT outsourcing decision design, and constructes an ANP model for it, and then analyzes relationship between IT outsourcing scope decision and vendors selection. Two types of IT outsourcing solutions are discussed, including substitution-based IT outsourcing and abstention-based IT outsourcing, which has extended IT outsourcing theory. (4) It provides a new research method of simulating IT outsourcing decision behavior, which simulates trigger mechanism of IT outsourcing adoption decision and vendors selection behavior based on Repast toolkit. The simulation results are discussed to analyze path dependency of IT outsourcing decision.