• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.55-78
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• 2007

Increasingly the information technology (IT) outsourcing phenomenon has been a subject of much academic research. Scholars have argued that knowledge complementarities playa crucial role in forming successful IT outsourcing relationships. However, notwithstanding the fast growth of IT outsourcing, prior studies on IT outsourcing have not included knowledge complementarities in their research design as a determining factor for IT outsourcing effectiveness. Further, the understanding of knowledge complementarities itself remains ambiguous. In this study, the concept of knowledge complementarities is explored in the IT outsourcing context at the firm level. Specifically, it addresses the following questions: what is knowledge complementarities? How does it affect IT outsourcing effectiveness? Is the relationship between knowledge complementarities and IT outsourcing effectiveness influenced by organizational trust between the client and the vendor? Grounded in the relevant theories to knowledge management and IT outsourcing, we develop a research model in which both the main effects of knowledge complementarities and organizational trust and the moderating effect of organizational trust on the relationships between knowledge complementarities and IT outsourcing effectiveness are tested. Within this research model, we develop a second order construct of knowledge complementarities, consisting of complementary business knowledge and complementary IT knowledge as the first order constructs. We have used data from a field study of 103 firms in Korea to test the proposed model. Controlling the effects of conflict resolution efforts, our empirical analysis found significant main effects of knowledge complementarities and organizational trust on IT outsourcing effectiveness. The results suggest that knowledge complementarities between the client and vendor positively contribute to IT outsourcing effectiveness. Specifically, the client needs to have enough IT knowledge to assess the quality of IT outsourcing services provided by the vendor. Meanwhile, the vendor should understand the client's business well enough to provide IT services, Contrary to our expectations, the moderating effect of trust on the relationship between knowledge complementarities and IT outsourcing effectiveness was not supported in this study. The results also show that organizational trust between client and vendor significantly influences IT outsourcing effectiveness. As for contributions of this study, we have not only clarified the concept of knowledge complementarities, but also developed an instrument to measure the concept and empirically validated it. Further, we have tested the idea that knowledge complementarities and trust directly influence IT outsourcing effectiveness and trust moderates the relationship between knowledge complementarities and IT outsourcing effectiveness. Out results prescribe the knowledge complementarities of client and vendor as a useful path to IT outsourcing effectiveness. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed in the paper.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Information Technology Applications Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.301-304
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• 2005

Most of the small and medium industries rather focus on immediate problems and how to properly maintain organizational matters and existing system than the strategic and operational use of Information Technology when they deal with applications and operation of Information System. This study found out that there were few studies on IT outsourcing for small and medium companies in Korea compared to large enterprises' IT outsourcing. Most preceding studies researched the problems of partnership and technical, managerial, and economical success factors for big companies. Small and medium companies have the problems of financial difficulty, organizational scale (40.3%), shortage of manpower for system operation (24.1%), and lack of practical use of managers (8.9%). SMB firms have required support of government for their Informationalization but, we found out amount of companies (41%) not be informed or don't account on government's supporting IT of SMB programs. In addition, Range and Contents of outsourcing, Reputation of Outsourcing vendor, Reliability of maintaining were selected as CSFs of SMB IT outsourcing. While large corporation staff more considered CEO's willing and inner facts of their companies.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.55-68
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• 2018

In this paper, we identify and evaluate the information security factors considered in outsourcing development of information systems for defense agency with analytic hierarchy process(AHP). To assess the information security elements, we prepared three groups including the experts of a defense agency, subcontractor managers and subcontractor practitioners who are involved in developing information systems. And the relative importance of security factors were analyzed using questionnaires and responses. As a result of analysis of 27 security factors, factors corresponding to human and physical security as a whole were evaluated as having higher importance. Although there are some differences in the ranking of some importance according to human roles, they can be positive for the implementation of complementary information security. And administrative security and technical security can be relatively insignificant considering that they can be considered as infrastructure of the overall information environment. The result of this paper will be helpful to recognize the difference of perception of information security factors among the persons in the organization where collaboration is activated and to prepare countermeasures against them.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.213-228
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• 2005

Due to the rapid progress of IT utilization, many firms have been perplexed how to increase the productivity and efficiency of the Information System and also to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of IS Organization. This paper employs the lens of the competitive advantages through Information System Outsourcing (ISO) arrangement. And also the concept of the "Utility Computing" of IBM-VNS. The Information Outsourcing System(ISO) is the fully or partly endorsed IT Outsourcing method, that supplies IT infrastructure, application system and system maintenance service, as well for the company networks. Many companies have implemented their own Information System. But some of the projects were not successfully carried out. We found many reasons for such a unsatisfaction with the quality of the new Information system. In this paper we select the "HanGlas Group" as the Case Study for Information System Outsourcing to overcome such difficulties. Through this Case Study we will learn the positive and negative aspects of ISO based on Utility Computing.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.115-137
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• 2010

Information technology (IT) outsourcing, the use of a third-party vendor to provide IT services, started in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Korea, and has increased rapidly since 2000. Recently, firms have increased their efforts to capture greater value from IT outsourcing. To date, there have been a large number of studies on IT outsourcing. Most prior studies on IT outsourcing have focused on outsourcing practices and decisions, and little attention has been paid to objectively measuring the value of IT outsourcing. In addition, studies that examined the performance of IT outsourcing have mainly relied on anecdotal evidence or practitioners' perceptions. Our study examines the contribution of IT outsourcing to economic growth in Korean industries over the 1990 to 2007 period, using a production function framework and a panel data set for 54 industries constructed from input-output tables, fixed-capital formation tables, and employment tables. Based on the framework and estimation procedures that Han, Kauffman and Nault (2010) used to examine the economic impact of IT outsourcing in U.S. industries, we evaluate the impact of IT outsourcing on output and productivity in Korean industries. Because IT outsourcing started to grow at a significantly more rapid pace in 2000, we compare the impact of IT outsourcing in pre- and post-2000 periods. Our industry-level panel data cover a large proportion of Korean economy-54 out of 58 Korean industries. This allows us greater opportunity to assess the impacts of IT outsourcing on objective performance measures, such as output and productivity. Using IT outsourcing and IT capital as our primary independent variables, we employ an extended Cobb-Douglas production function in which both variables are treated as factor inputs. We also derive and estimate a labor productivity equation to assess the impact of our IT variables on labor productivity. We use data from seven years (1990, 1993, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007) for which both input-output tables and fixed-capital formation tables are available. Combining the input-output tables and fixed-capital formation tables resulted in 54 industries. IT outsourcing is measured as the value of computer-related services purchased by each industry in a given year. All the variables have been converted to 2000 Korean Won using GDP deflators. To calculate labor hours, we use the average work hours for each sector provided by the OECD. To effectively control for heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation present in our dataset, we use the feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) procedures. Because the AR1 process may be industry-specific (i.e., panel-specific), we consider both common AR1 and panel-specific AR1 (PSAR1) processes in our estimations. We also include year dummies to control for year-specific effects common across industries, and sector dummies (as defined in the GDP deflator) to control for time-invariant sector-specific effects. Based on the full sample of 378 observations, we find that a 1% increase in IT outsourcing is associated with a 0.012~0.014% increase in gross output and a 1% increase in IT capital is associated with a 0.024~0.027% increase in gross output. To compare the contribution of IT outsourcing relative to that of IT capital, we examined gross marginal product (GMP). The average GMP of IT outsourcing was 6.423, which is substantially greater than that of IT capital at 2.093. This indicates that on average if an industry invests KRW 1 millon, it can increase its output by KRW 6.4 million. In terms of the contribution to labor productivity, we find that a 1% increase in IT outsourcing is associated with a 0.009~0.01% increase in labor productivity while a 1% increase in IT capital is associated with a 0.024~0.025% increase in labor productivity. Overall, our results indicate that IT outsourcing has made positive and economically meaningful contributions to output and productivity in Korean industries over the 1990 to 2007 period. The average GMP of IT outsourcing we report about Korean industries is 1.44 times greater than that in U.S. industries reported in Han et al. (2010). Further, we find that the contribution of IT outsourcing has been significantly greater in the 2000~2007 period during which the growth of IT outsourcing accelerated. Our study provides implication for policymakers and managers. First, our results suggest that Korean industries can capture further benefits by increasing investments in IT outsourcing. Second, our analyses and results provide a basis for managers to assess the impact of investments in IT outsourcing and IT capital in an objective and quantitative manner. Building on our study, future research should examine the impact of IT outsourcing at a more detailed industry level and the firm level.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.49-81
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• 2007

Research in the IS (Information Systems) outsourcing has focused on the importance of legal contracts and partnerships between vendors and clients. Without detailed legal contracts, there is no guarantee that an outsourcing vendor would not indulge in self-serving behavior. In addition, partnerships can supplement legal contracts in managing the relationship between clients and vendors legal contracts by itself cannot deal with all the complexity and ambiguity involved with IS outsourcing relationships. In this paper, we introduce a psychological contract (between client and vendor) as an important variable for IS outsourcing success. A psychological contract refers to individual's mental beliefs about his or her mutual obligations in a contractual relationship (Rousseau, 1995). A psychological contract emerges when one party believes that a promise of future returns has been made, a contribution has been given, and thus, an obligation has been created to provide future benefits (Rousseau, 1989). An employmentpsychological contract, which is a widespread concept in psychology, refers to employer and employee expectations of the employment relationship, i.e. mutual obligations, values, expectations and aspirations that operate over and above the formal contract of employment (Smithson and Lewis, 2003). Similar to the psychological contract between an employer and employee, IS outsourcing involves a contract and a set of mutual obligations between client and vendor (Ho et al., 2003). Given the lack of prior research on psychological contracts in the IS outsourcing context, we extend such studies and give insights through investigating the role of psychological contracts between client and vendor. Psychological contract theory offers highly relevant and sound theoretical lens for studying IS outsourcing management because of its six distinctive principles: (1) it focuses on mutual (rather than one-sided) obligations between contractual parties, (2) it's more comprehensive than the concept of legal contract, (3) it's an individual-level construct, (4) it changes over time, (5) it affects organizational behaviors, and (6) it's susceptible to organizational factors (Koh et al., 2004; Rousseau, 1996; Coyle-Shapiro, 2000). The aim of this paper is to put the concept, psychological contract commitment (PCC), under the spotlight, by finding out its mediating effects between legal contracts/partnerships and IS outsourcing success. Our interest is in the psychological contract commitment (PCC) or commitment to psychological contracts, which is the extent to which a partner consistently and deeply concerns with what the counter-party believes as obligations during the IS project. The basic premise for the hypothesized relationship between PCC and success is that for outsourcing success, client and vendor should continually commit to mutual obligations in which both parties believe, rather than to only explicit obligations. The psychological contract commitment playsa pivotal role in evaluating a counter-party because it reflects what one party really expects from the other. If one party consistently shows high commitment to psychological contracts, the other party would evaluate it positively. This will increase positive reciprocation efforts of the other party, thus leading to successful outsourcing outcomes (McNeeley and Meglino, 1994). We have used matched sample data for this research. We have collected three responses from each set of a client and a vendor firm: a project manager of the client firm, a project member from the vendor firm with whom the project manager cooperated, and an end-user of the client company who actually used the outsourced information systems. Special caution was given to the data collection process to avoid any bias in responses. We first sent three types of questionnaires (A, Band C) to each project manager of the client firm, asking him/her to answer the first type of questionnaires (A).

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.41-66
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• 2013

IS outsourcing has an important meaning to the Korean SME's (Small and Medium Enterprises) which want to use the IS Services. The objective of this research is to manage IT risks occurred during IS outsourcing project process. This study tries to identify these risks using real option methodology. In order to perform this objective, this study set up the research model which is composed of two main concepts. The first one is the risk factors occurred during IS outsourcing project process: User's Risks, Supplier's Risks and Transaction's Risks. All of these risks are based on Transaction Cost Theory. The second one is the intention to get (or buy) Real Options to manage the risks. In the research model, two types of real option are included: option to abandon (put option) and option to defer (call option). This study uses questionnaires and statistics methodology (PLS) to analyze the hypotheses proposed in the research model. Compared with prior studies, this study is different in two ways. First, this study restricts the range of IT risks. Prior researches of IT Risk management in MIS area cover various range of IT risks, but this study focuses on the Korean SME's IT outsourcing risks on the basis of Transaction Cost Theory. This study tests the relationship between the risks and real option types. Second, this study tries to test the moderating effect of user's risks and supplier's risks on the relationship between transaction's risks and real option types. In IT outsourcing research area, almost studies focus on the direct relationships between IT risks and outsourcing success. But in reality, the co-relationship among IT risks may occur. There are some findings according to the research analysis. First, risks related with user's risks have strong causal relationships with the intention to get option to abandon (put) and option to defer. But risks related with supplier's risks have causal relationships only with option to abandon (put). Second, user's risks and supplier's risks have no moderating effect on the relationship between transaction's risks and real option types. According to the research results, this research have some important and interesting implications on the IS outsourcing business area. First, this study identifies the effective types of real option to minimize the risks occurred during the IT outsourcing projects. So IS outsourcing service users can manage (or minimize) effectively the risks, which occurred during outsourcing projects, using real options. Second, real option gives benefits to suppliers and users at the same time (i.e., win-win strategies between IS outsourcing service providers and users). Vendors (:IS outsourcing service providers) can offer users the real options which can minimize the occurrence of risks in time. "IN TIME" means that before the IS outsourcing project starts, vendors can offer users the opportunity to buy real options in appropriate prices to manage the possibility of the risks of IS outsourcing project. And users also have chance to minimize the IT outsourcing risks occurred during the project process using real options.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.154-173
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• 2010

Database outsourcing is unavoidable in the near future. In the scenario of data stream outsourcing, the data owner continuously publishes the latest data and associated authentication information through a service provider. Clients may register queries to the service provider and verify the result's correctness, utilizing the additional authentication information. Research on On-line Stream Analytics (OLSA) is motivated by extending the data cube technology for higher multi-level abstraction on the low-level-abstracted data streams. Existing work on OLSA fails to consider the issue of database outsourcing, while previous work on stream authentication does not support OLSA. To close this gap and solve the problem of OLSA query authentication while outsourcing data streams, we propose MDAHRB and MDAHB, two multi-dimensional authentication approaches. They are based on the general data model for OLSA, the stream cube. First, we improve the data structure of the H-tree, which is used to store the stream cube. Then, we design and implement two authentication schemes based on the improved H-trees, the HRB- and HB-trees, in accordance with the main stream query authentication framework for database outsourcing. Along with a cost models analysis, consistent with state-of-the-art cost metrics, an experimental evaluation is performed on a real data set. It exhibits that both MDAHRB and MDAHB are feasible for authenticating OLSA queries, while MDAHRB is more scalable.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.256-263
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• 2007

Corporate managers look at IT outsourcing as long-term strategic choices not as short-term tactical ones, and maximizing the effect that IT outsourcing brings about is the main concern to them. Emerging different types of IT outsourcing and their effects on the corporate business decisions necessitate the research on this subject. According to previous researches, the Intent for IT outsourcing is categorized as IS Improvement, Business Impact, and Commercial Exploitation. The decison factors for these IT outsourcing include corporate strategy types, IT role, and interaction between these two. Firm size and IT maturity are selected as moderating factors to add the credibility to the research of the effect of IT outsourcing decision making. Analyzing IT outsourcing data collected from 61 large-size and mid-size domestic firms revealed that corporate strategy rather than IT role is more significant factor affecting the intent for IT outsourcing decision. That means the decision of outsourcing intent is affected by corporate strategy types. Defenders(as in corporate strategy types) tend to use IT outsourcing more as a means to improve information systems, compared to analyzers and reactors. Prospectors tend to use IT outsourcing more as a commercial exploitation, compared to analyzers and reactors. These outcomes prove that corporate strategy characteristics reflect outsourcing intent. There were previous researches that showed outsourcing decision depends on IT role however the hypothesis was rejected that IT role determines outsourcing intent. It was also rejected that the interaction between corporate strategy types and IT role determines outsourcing intent. Corporate decision makers should first analyze corporate strategy, and reflect it on the outsourcing intent when they make IT outsourcing decisions. Only the precise defining of IT outsourcing intent will lower the risk and increase the possibility of success.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.433-441
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• 2014

Increasing the outsourcing of personal information treatment, the safe management and director for fiduciary is very important. In this paper, under the personal information protection management systems the current situation of fiduciary management and direction was reviewed and the certification system was analysed in terms of availability of the controled items. Under the basis of legal compliance at the time of the Privacy Act, the characteristics of outsourcing type was also analyzed and derived new controled items. As a result of the proposed research, new controled items for fiduciary could be used as a standard for the managing Director.