• Information Systems Review
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.177-197
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• 2016

Information technology (IT) outsourcing is considered an effective strategy to manage and maintain organizational technologies in a rapidly changing business environment. In particular, to meet diverse market needs, many organizations that outsource their IT functions practice a multi-vendor approach as their main outsourcing strategy. Although a few studies have been conducted about the multi-vendor approach, most previous works primarily emphasized conceptual arguments and normative prescriptions. In addition, scant attention has been directed toward the relational structure between the client and multiple vendors in the multi-vendor approach and its implications for outsourcing success. This study proposes a model from the transaction cost perspective by conceptualizing two dominant relational structures of the multi-vendor approach, namely, single-vendor dominant model and the multi-vendor dominant model, and hypothesizing their relationships with two outsourcing outcomes, project success and user satisfaction. The proposed model is examined using the data collected from 246 companies that have implemented multi-vendor outsourcing. As expected, results indicate that the single-vendor dominant model has a more significant impact on project success, whereas the multi-vendor dominant model has a more significant impact on user satisfaction. The study concludes with the theoretical implications and directions for future research.

• Management Science and Financial Engineering
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.15-42
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• 1998

A joint problem of order delivery, setup reduction, and cost-sharing in a two-echelon inventory system in which a vendor supplies multiple products to a group of buyers is studied here. The basic premise is that buyers have independently implemented setup reduction programs to acquire benefits from small order sizes. Doing so, however, causes the buyers' individually optimal order cycles to be differ from that of the vendor. In conjunction with this, two models are considered. In the first model, a multi-buyers single product situation is considered in which the vendor implements a joint supply cycle policy. However, buyers, as the dominant party, insist after implementing the individually optimal setup reduction that the vendor accept their individually optimal order schedules. In the second model. a multi-products, single buyer situation is considered in which the buyer implements a joint order policy. Here, the vendor, as the dominant party, refuses to cooperate fully with the buyer's individually reduced joint order schedule, and designs his own individually optimal setup reduction mix for each product under a given budget constraint. This led to a study of an integrated Setup Reduction/Break-even Pricing Policy for each situation to eliminate mismatches in individually optimal cycle times.