ABSTRACT
Also included in this chapter is a case study describing a partnership in which both an internal IT department and external companies are involved as service providers.
Within the context of an outsourcing partnership it is the provider who must take care of the actual delivery of the IT services contracted for. This provider can be either an internal IT department or an external company, or both. For governance purposes this makes no difference in principle, since all providers must pay governance thorough attention in order to be able to guarantee proper service delivery (Lacity and Hirschheim 1995; Feeny et al. 2005). This includes developments facing the service recipient (the external focus, from the provider’s point of view) and the manner in which the services will be delivered (the internal focus) (Cullen and Willcocks 2003). In Chapter 8, four provider-side governance factors were identified: a clear and consistent market position; a front office; a back office; and the availability of IT professionals. These governance factors are embedded in the detailed theories, as detailed in Section 8.7. The first governance factor, ‘a clear and consistent market position’ is linked to the institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). What is the strategy of the service provider towards the market? The implementation of the front and back offices are related to the organizational theories. The effectiveness of the decision-making process is key (Dyer and Singh 1998).
