Formal and relational governance of artificial intelligence outsourcing

Outsourcing emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are expected to impact organisations significantly, due to a tight labour market for AI expertise. However, how formal and relational governance effects Information Systems suppliers who provide AI services has not been studied. Based on an exploratory research amongst eight suppliers and two market research advisors, we conducted 18 expert interviews and found evidence how formal contractual and relational governance affects AI outsourcing. The results indicate various forms of contractual models in which some cater for clients’ needs specifically, e.g. outcome-based, experience-driven Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Our examination provides insights that formal and relational Information Systems (IS) outsourcing governance are complementary in cases where clients and suppliers co-develop AI. For our research, we adapted the outsourcing governance model of Lioliou et al. (Inf Syst J 24:503–535, 2014), including their emphasis on the psychological contract. We contribute to IS outsourcing literature by exploring, beyond contract management insights, differences between suppliers in providing AI services. Our study acknowledges that AI outsourcing shift the emphasis from a transactional type of arrangement to a relational type of outsourcing arrangement. In addition, the combination of both formal and relational governance mechanisms positively contributes to IS governance. Our study also confirms that the innovative character of AI positively contributes to the psychological contract in outsourcing AI.

     

Collaborating with Bounty Hunters: How to Encourage White Hat Hackers’ Participation in Vulnerability Crowdsourcing Programs through Formal and Relational Governance

Although crowdsourcing studies have provided insights into the factors motivating solvers, how to collaborate with white hat hackers in vulnerability crowdsourcing is still unclear. Drawing from information systems (IS) governance literature and psychological contract theory, this study proposed a research model to explore the effects of formal and relational governance mechanisms on solvers’ participation. Data from 242 programs and 6095 white hat hackers were collected and analyzed through a negative binomial regression. Results show that outcome control, expressing commitment, and prompt communication can increase the submission quantity of vulnerabilities. Interestingly, behavior control has an inverted U-shaped relationship with submission quantity.     

一种考虑消息类型的服务可替换性验证方法

针对SOA中成员服务失效率较高的问题,提出一种考虑消息类型的、基于Web服务描述语言(WSDL)的服务可替换性验证方法。通过解析服务的WSDL描述文件给出服务的形式化表达式,根据服务契约判定2个服务形式化表达式间的替换关系,对比存在替换关系的2个服务的消息类型,得出2个服务是否可替换的结论。实验结果表明,该方法能得到更严格的服务可替换性关系。     

Exploring information technology outsourcing relationships: theory and practice

A growing concern among the organisations who are actively involved in Information Technology outsourcing is post-contract management and the ensuing development of what many practitioners and scholars have coined the ‘outsourcing partnership’. This paper integrates theoretical concepts from organisation theory, social exchange theory, and relational contract theory with existing research on IT outsourcing, to develop a conceptual model for understanding the relationship. In particular, we conceptually elaborate and then address the relationship's properties — identified as interactions, contract, context, structure, and behavioural dimensions. Preliminary exploratory research into relationship practice in twelve organisations involved in outsourcing presents some interesting findings that advance the thinking about the outsourcing relationship. We found the conceptual model useful in elucidating important relationship management areas, highlighting not only the outsourcing relationship's contractual, social, and economic characteristics, but also many additional elements found to have relevance in practice.     

The mediating role of psychological contract breach in IS outsourcing: inter-firm governance perspective

A substantial body of previous research on the client–vendor relationship has identified inter-organizational partnerships and formal contracts as important governance mechanisms for outsourcing performance. Successful IS development through outsourcing, however, may be more dependent on the people who execute the project in the field than on inter-firm relationships and agreed-upon formalities. Among individual-level variables, the special importance of psychological contracts has recently been noted in IS literature. This study investigates the mediating role of psychological contract breach between these two firm-level governance factors and outsourcing performance. By analyzing matched responses from project managers, vendor participants, and system users, we found that the effects of explicit legal contracts and partnership quality on outsourcing outcome are fully mediated by the client's perception of breach by the vendor. This study offers an extended theoretical perspective on the governance of firm-level collaboration, especially revealing that the benefits of formal contracts and inter-organizational partnerships eventually translate into satisfactory outsourcing outcomes for system users through each party's perception of breach on the individual level. Moreover, discrepancy was observed in this study between the client and vendor regarding the impact of legal contracts on individuals’ psychological contract while that of partnership was prominent in both sides.     

Achieving IT‐based synergies through regulation‐oriented and consensus‐oriented IT governance capabilities

This study aims at exploring the IT governance capabilities that enable organizations to achieve IT‐based synergies. Following existing work on the contextualization of theories and drawing on the resource‐based view of the firm (RBV), we develop an RBV of IT‐based synergies in two steps. First, we adopt existing context‐specific constructs and relationships from prior work on IT governance capabilities, IT relatedness, and synergies to develop a preliminary contextualization of the RBV. Second, to further refine our theoretical framework, we conduct an exploratory field study that includes interviews with 26 CIOs and other IT executives from 21 multibusiness firms. Our findings suggest that IT governance capabilities lead to IT‐based synergies through IT relatedness and business process relatedness. We found regulation‐oriented IT governance capabilities (IT roles and IT processes) to increase IT relatedness, while consensus‐oriented IT governance capabilities (IT groups and relational capabilities) had a positive effect on business process relatedness. Our results suggest that, in isolation, IT and business process relatedness lead to IT cost synergies, while collectively enabling IT‐induced business synergies. Our study is among the first to treat IT relatedness as an endogenous construct and to explicitly integrate business process relatedness into the IT governance domain. Our context‐specific decomposition of IT governance capabilities helps to better explain their links to IT and business process relatedness. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the tension between IT‐based synergies and business‐IT alignment. Decision‐makers are guided in developing IT governance capabilities to achieve IT‐based synergies.     

Psychological Contract and Turnover Intention in the Information Technology Profession

The recruitment and retention of Information Technology (IT) professionals continue to concern organizations and researchers. We employ psychological contract theory to examine how unmet expectations may influence psychological contract breach and turnover intention. The results of a survey of IT professionals indicate four factors contributing to IT workers’ perceptions of psychological contract breach including perceived supervisor support, emotional dissonance, work exhaustion, and salary. Further, autonomy moderates the relationship between psychological contract breach and turnover intention.     

The Impact of Specific Job Stressors on Psychological Contract Breach and Violation

This study investigated whether environmental stressors predict perceptions of psychological contract breach and associated feelings of violation in employees from a large manufacturing organization. It was proposed that increasing levels of job stress as a result of changes in the employment context may account for the rising incidence of perceived contract breach. The results suggest that breach and violation are more likely when employees are experiencing role conflict, perceive a lack of career progression, and perceive a lack of control over work. Further, control was found to moderate the relationship between stress and breach. This study has important practical implications, suggesting ways in which organizations may be able to reduce the likelihood of psychological contract breach and violation.     

法律合约与智能合约一致性综述

从计算机科学的角度对法律合约与智能合约的一致性研究现状进行了总结和分析。首先,分别对法律合约描述语言和智能合约开发语言进行了分类和分析,总结了每种语言的特点;其次,根据合同自动化执行的三个发展阶段对法律合约和智能合约的一致性内涵进行了分析和讨论;分别基于形式化模型和合约模板总结了由法律合约生成智能合约代码的方法和关键技术,并对其进行了讨论和评价;最后,对未来法律合约与智能合约的一致性研究进行了总结和展望。     

Automating the analysis of design component contracts

Software patterns are a new design paradigm used to solve problems that arise when developing software within a particular context. Patterns capture the static and dynamic structure and collaboration among the components in a software design. A key promise of the pattern‐based approach is that it may greatly simplify the construction of software systems out of building blocks and thus reuse experience and reduce cost. However, it also introduces significant problems in ensuring the integrity and reliability of these composed systems because of their complex software topologies, interactions and transactions. There is a need to capture these features as a contract through a formal model that allows us to analyze pattern‐based designs. In this paper, we provide an overview of a formal framework for ensuring the integrity of the compositions in object‐oriented designs by providing mathematically rigorous modeling and analysis techniques for object‐oriented systems comprising pattern‐based designs as the basic building blocks or design components. A case study related to a hypermedia Web‐based application has been presented to illustrate our approach in distributed systems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of process standardization on business process outsourcing success

What is the impact of business process standardization on business process outsourcing (BPO) success? This paper argues that there is a direct impact of process standardization on BPO success, due to production cost economies, and also an indirect effect via improved contractual and relational governance resulting from better monitoring opportunities and facilitated communication and coordination. This threefold impact of standardization on BPO success is empirically confirmed using data from 335 BPO ventures in 215 German banks.     

Contract efficiency for a decentralized supply chain in the presence of quality improvement

In this paper, we study a joint pricing and product quality decision problem in a decentralized supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and one retailer. Although the manufacturer decides the product quality with an associated cost, the retailer decides the retail price. We aim to study and compare different contract formats for this decentralized supply chain. There is a trade‐off in the choice of contracts: simpler format contract (with a few parameters) is less complicated, but the contract efficiency is low. We start with the simplest one‐parameter contract: a wholesale price contract that serves as the benchmark. We then study how contract efficiency can be improved by adding one more parameter. Specifically, we consider three two‐parameter contracts that are commonly used in reality: two‐part tariff contract, revenue‐sharing contract, and effort cost sharing contract. We find that the contract efficiency is improved under all the three contracts, but in different ways: the improvement in contract efficiency under each of them dominates the other two when manufacturer's quality improvement effectiveness is relatively low, moderate, and high, respectively. Furthermore, through numerical examples, we find that under some cases, a choice from these three two‐parameter contracts can achieve a close‐to‐perfect efficiency (>85%). Finally, we investigate whether a combination of the three two‐parameter contracts can achieve coordination. Interestingly, we find that only the combination of effort cost sharing contract and revenue‐sharing contract can achieve coordination, whereas combinations of either of them and two‐part tariff contract cannot.     

一种基于契约和协商的授权方法*

针对目前信任协商研究中缺乏激励真诚协商动机的研究工作,通过引入博弈论中契约理论的思想,提出了一种基于契约和协商的授权方法,为陌生者之间真诚的信任协商提供了保障,是对信任协商机制的有益补充。通过对方法的性能分析,表明由契约协商引入的代价是可以接受的。这种方法为解决陌生环境下的资源授权管理问题提供了一种新的有效手段。     

Firms' intellectual property ownership aggressiveness in university–industry collaboration projects: Choosing the right governance mode

Intellectual property (IP) ownership aggressiveness constitutes an organization's strategic stance that prioritizes its IP protection. An organization thus pursues a rigid approach to protect its background IP and strives for exclusive ownership of the foreground IP that results from collaborative projects. This paper investigates how firms' IP ownership aggressiveness influences university–industry collaboration (UIC) project success and examines if the relationship is contingent on the governance modes that firms employ in UICs, especially the intensity of contract formality and shared governance. Analysing survey data from UIC projects of medium‐sized to large firms covering four industries, we find that the levels of contract formality and shared governance moderate the effect of firms' IP ownership aggressiveness on project success. Strong contract formality leads to a negative relationship between firms' IP ownership aggressiveness and UIC project success. Conversely, if firms apply strong shared governance, the relationship between IP ownership aggressiveness and UIC project success is positive. Given firms' strategic approach to protect background IP and claim ownership of foreground IP, these results have implications for UIC managers when selecting governance modes to best support UIC project success.     

Creating Better Governance of Offshore Services

Abstract

Given the extensive history that companies now have with offshore outsourcing and the critical role that it continues to play, it is vital that we synthesize the many lessons learned and formalize them into a workable and flexible governance model. A review of the leading academic and practitioner literature on offshore outsourcing provided the basis for development of nine attributes of best practices/maturity. These attributes were used further to propose a framework for mature offshore outsourcing governance. We conducted a case study of a leading U.S.-headquartered multinational company and its major offshore vendors, some of whom the company had been involved in offshoring with for many years. By juxtaposing the case study experiences with the disparate literature on offshore outsourcing and IT governance, a proposed model for mature offshore outsourcing governance emerged.     

Exploring complexity and contradiction in information technology outsourcing: A set-theoretical approach

Effectively managing Information Technology outsourcing (ITO) requires integration of conceptually distinct and sometimes contradicting factors. For instance, ITO “best practices” for cost reduction can inhibit a firm’s innovativeness. To address these challenges, we build on governance and capability perspectives and employ a set-theoretic approach to examine ITO practices in 27 firms. Our exploratory study reveals four distinct ITO configurations, of which three lead to positive outcomes and one leads to negated-outcomes. Detailed contracts appear to be a necessary condition for cost reduction but can also be an impediment to strategic innovation; and firms can consider a “best-of-breed” strategy to overcome this tension. Our findings call for more attention to both transaction-based and portfolio-based governance to enable flexibility for innovation while retaining rigor and risk mitigation for cost reduction.     

Corporate governance and strategic resource allocation: The case of information technology investments

We empirically examine a set of relationships between corporate governance and information technology investments. Specifically, we test our relationships with data from a sample of major U.S. corporations using structural equation modeling. We established a negative relationship between information technology investments and two constructs of corporate governance, namely: (a) stock ownership structure (that includes large or insider shareholders); and (b) presence of takeover defenses. These results provide support for the “monitoring hypothesis” and the “managerial entrenchment hypothesis” of risky investments respectively. In addition, we observed a negative relationship between stock ownership structure and takeover defense adoption. Our study contributes to a critical understanding of the determinants of information technology investments viewed within the governance context of a relational exchange between two important corporate constituents: the managers and the shareholders.     

非滥用合同签署协议的研究

非滥用性是合同签署协议提出的新的安全需求,人们对它的描述还模糊不明。利用交互式定理证明器Isabelle/HOL推导了“TTP的aborted仲裁”与“失败的合同签约”的不等价关系,提出了“合同签约失败”的形式定义,提出了一个新的非滥用性的形式化描述,验证了BW多方合同签署协议的非滥用性。     

企业IT治理架构构建①

针对当前企业信息化过程中所存在的问题,系统论述了企业管理和IT治理的关系,并着重分析了企业IT治理的模式,提出了企业IT治理的目标和架构。并在此基础上提出了企业IT治理架构构建的方法。