TY - JOUR A1 - Bary, Benedikt von A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - How decision maker's personal preferences influence the decision to backsource IT services JF - Journal of Information Technology Management (JITM) N2 - To prepare their IT landscape for future business challenges, companies are changing their IT sourcing arrangements by using selective sourcing approaches as well as multi-sourcing with more but smaller sourcing contracts. Companies therefore have to reconsider and re-evaluate their IT sourcing setup more frequently. Collecting data from 251 global experts, we empirically tested the effect of service quality, relationship quality, and switching costs on IT sourcing decisions using partial least squares (PLS) analysis. Drawing on previously conducted expert interviews, our model extends previous studies and introduces a decision maker’s sourcing preferences as a not yet examined moderator on IT sourcing decisions. This allows us to investigate the influence of the decision maker’s beliefs on the decision process. We were able to confirm the negative effect of switching costs on a decision in favor of backsourcing, however we could not find significant support for the remaining hypotheses. We further discuss potential reasons for our findings and suggest future research opportunities based on our contribution. KW - Outsourcing KW - Backsourcing KW - back-in-house KW - information technology KW - partial least squares Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:898-opus4-233 UR - https://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXX-3/article1.pdf VL - 30 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 22 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bary, Benedikt von A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Adding experts’ perceptions to complement existing research on information systems backsourcing JF - International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management N2 - This paper extends the existing literature on information systems (IS) backsourcing by the perception of practitioners. For this purpose, we conducted a series of qualitative, semistructured interviews with IS sourcing experts. The interview questions focused on the participants’ perceptions and experiences with the topic, on identifying reasons for and against IS backsourcing, and on revealing relevant trends pertinent to IS backsourcing. We then compared those findings with two previously conducted comprehensive literature reviews on academic and practitioner literature on IS backsourcing. By following this approach, we contribute to the existing research by verifying previous findings, for example, the most important reasons why companies decide in favor of IS backsourcing. Additionally, we were able to enhance previous contributions as we highlight the significance of differentiating between the scope of IS backsourcing by looking at the underlying services which are potentially backsourced. Further, we identified the importance of managers’ personal preferences as an additional reason for IS backsourcing, for example, based on personal experiences or a perceived need for change. Based on our findings, we created a comprehensive overview of all aspects connected to the IS backsourcing process and derived opportunities for further research to contribute to the IS backsourcing research agenda. KW - backsourcing KW - insourcing KW - back in-house KW - information systems KW - expert interviews KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Insourcing KW - Umfrage Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.12821/ijispm060402 SN - 2182-7788 VL - 6 IS - 4 SP - 17 EP - 35 PB - SciKA ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bary, Benedikt von A1 - Westner, Markus T1 - Information Systems Backsourcing BT - A Literature Review JF - Journal of Information Technology Management N2 - Information systems backsourcing describes the transferof previously outsourced activities, assets, or personnel back to the originating companyto regain ownership and control. While there is much research on information systems outsourcing, the topic of backsourcing information systemsis still an emerging research area. Therefore, ourpaper aims to explore and synthesizethe existing literature on information systemsbacksourcing, since there is no exhaustiveliteraturereview of the state of the research to our knowledge available yet. In this paper, wecreate a framework to structure the existing research along the overallbacksourcing process. We identifydifferent motivators, such asexpectation gaps, orinternal and external organizational changes, leading towards a backsourcing decision, and factors positively or negatively influencing this decision. Additionally, we derive implementation success factors based on the existing literature to guide companies through the backsourcing process.We also differentiate the term backsourcing from related, sometimes synonymously used terms, by emphasizing the change of ownership back to the company of originas the main criterion.Additionally, we discuss opportunities for future research in the field of information systems backsourcing. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Insourcing KW - Literaturbericht KW - Backsourcing KW - Backshoring KW - Reshoring KW - Inshoring KW - Information systems KW - Information technology KW - Literature review Y1 - 2018 UR - http://jitm.ubalt.edu/XXIX-1/article4.pdf VL - 29 IS - 1 SP - 62 EP - 78 PB - University of Tehran ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bary, Benedikt von A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Do researchers investigate what practitioners deem relevant? BT - Gaps between research and practice in the field of information systems backsourcing T2 - Proceedings of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics (IEEE CBI 2018): Vienna, Austria, 11-14 July N2 - There is a common understanding amongst academics that information systems (IS) research sometimes has limited relevance for practitioners. This can be explained by the fact that research lags behind the fast moving IS environment, has limited practical applicability and is hard to access. We have focused on the research area of IS backsourcing, and analyzed practitioner literature to increase our understanding of topics of interest for practitioners, to determine a potential gap between academic and practitioner literature, and to identify future research directions in this field. We observed that most publications are either news or background articles, focusing on describing backsourcing cases. Additionally, we identified four recurring themes, namely reasons for backsourcing, presentation of survey results, discussion of industry trends, and backsourcing success stories. The main reasons identified to trigger backsourcing decisions are cost savings, quality improvements, and increasing control and flexibility. By comparing our findings with academic literature on IS backsourcing, we conclude that generally both literature types cover similar topics. However, researchers have a more formulative or interpretive focus than the often descriptive practitioner literature. Academic literature also examines a broader range of topics, while practitioner literature has a narrower focus. Additionally, we observe one difference regarding applied terminology: while researchers employ the term backsourcing, practitioners mostly use back in-house or insourcing. Our paper contributes to facilitating the exchange between academics and practitioners, presents topics to consider when aiming to increase practical relevance and provides researchers with concrete directions for future research within the field of IS backsourcing. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Backsourcing KW - Anwendung KW - Literaturbericht KW - Information systems KW - Backsourcing KW - Practical applicability Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/CBI.2018.00014 SP - 40 EP - 49 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Strahringer, Susanne A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Bary, Benedikt von T1 - IT-Backsourcing JF - Das Wirtschaftsstudium : wisu N2 - The importance of information systems (IS) for companies has grown rapidly over the recent years. For example, companies from various industries are focusing their efforts to digitize business models, to adopt agile forms of collaboration, and to leverage automation of routine tasks. This forces companies to review their IS sourcing strategies and to potentially consider alternatives for current outsourcing contracts. One potential option could be to backsource IS services currently performed by external vendors. Based on empirical observations, previous academics defined it as the repatriation of all assets, activities, and skills needed to perform IS services back in-house, which had been outsourced previously to one or multiple vendors. The distinctive characteristic of backsourcing is the change in ownership back to the mother organization. This distinguishes the term backsourcing from similar terms, e.g., backshoring, reshoring, or relocating, which rather focus on the change in location of the service delivery. At the initial sourcing decision, the strategy to outsource an IS service was considered most promising. However, certain developments both inside the company, but also on a broader industry level may lead to a re-evaluation of the situation and thus to an adjustment of the original sourcing strategy. Over the last years, there has been a strong increase in cloud-based services and a shift towards the deployment of standardized, almost “industrialized” applications as services. Before, large companies leveraged their size in realizing economies of scale within their sourcing volumes. The raise of cloud computing as well as standardization of service delivery decreased those benefits and led towards a decline in large outsourcing contracts across a variety of services and a growth of multi-sourcing of individual IS services from the respective “best-in-breed” vendors for shorter time periods. Besides sourcing the best vendor for each service, companies that implement multi-sourcing strategies additionally aim for cost benefits due to an increased competition between vendors, and an increase in agility and adaptability. At the same time, a move towards multi-sourcing strategies with shorter contract durations leads to an increase in so-called “second generation sourcing decisions”, namely whether to continue outsourcing a respective service or to bring the service back in-house. Given the developments within the IS environment, this research projects aims at understanding why IS services are backsourced and which factors influence a company’s decision to backsource an IS service. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Insourcing KW - IT-Backsourcing KW - Information systems KW - Outsourcing KW - Rückverlagerung KW - Auslagerung Y1 - 2019 IS - 6 SP - 702 EP - 706 PB - Lange ; Mohr CY - Düsseldorf ; Tübingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - von Bary, Benedikt A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - IT Backsourcing BT - Insights and Implications From a Global Survey With IT Practitioners JF - International Journal of IT/Business Alignment and Governance N2 - With the growing importance of IT as competitive advantage, companies aim to increase their digital transformation activities. Consequently, companies are also revisiting their existing IT sourcing arrangements. In the article at hand, the authors explore the concept of IT backsourcing by presenting the results from a quantitative online survey with global IT practitioners. The authors confirm that backsourcing is frequently applied in practice, with key reasons being dissatisfaction with service or relationship quality and higher than expected costs. Further, the authors identify IT services with an increased likelihood of being backsourced, e.g., application development or data center, and discuss the effect of a CIO change on the backsourcing decision. In addition, the authors show that there are differences in the perceptions on the antecedents and the results of backsourcing decisions between management and operational level. The authors conclude with practical implications for IT managers based on their findings. KW - Outsourcing KW - Backsourcing KW - Business-IT Alignment KW - CIO Change KW - Digital Transformation KW - Insourcing Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4018/IJITBAG.2019070102 VL - 10 IS - 2 PB - IGI Global ER - TY - JOUR A1 - von Bary, Benedikt A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - IT-Backsourcing BT - Empirische Erkenntnisse und Handlungsempfehlungen für eine erfolgreiche Re-Integration der IT-Serviceerbringung JF - HMD Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik N2 - IT-Backsourcing bezeichnet die Re-Integration vormals outgesourcter IT-Services zurück zum auslagernden Unternehmen. Die vorliegende Studie stellt die Ergebnisse einer Umfrage unter IT-Managern zu Einflussfaktoren von IT-Backsourcing-Entscheidungen vor. Es lässt sich feststellen, dass IT-Backsourcing von Unternehmen in unterschiedlichen Branchen und für eine Vielzahl an unterschiedlichen IT-Services, wie z. B. Applikationsentwicklung oder Infrastruktur-Leistungen, durchgeführt wird. Hauptgründe für die Entscheidung für ein IT-Backsourcing sind mangelnde Qualität, hohe Kosten sowie eine schlechte Beziehung zum IT-Dienstleister. Die Ergebnisse der Umfrage zeigen, dass diejenigen Unternehmen, die sich für ein Backsourcing entschieden haben, nach der Entscheidung insgesamt zufriedener waren als diejenigen, die in einer Outsourcing-Beziehung geblieben sind. Zudem werden verschiedene Handlungsempfehlungen für IT-Manager aufgezeigt. Zur Ausarbeitung einer zukunftsorientieren IT-Sourcing-Strategie empfiehlt es sich, eine service-spezifische Sourcing-Strategie zu verfolgen und entsprechend spezialisierte Dienstleister einzusetzen. Im Falle einer Entscheidung für ein IT-Backsourcing sollten verschiedene Erfolgsfaktoren beachtetet werden, wie z. B. eine frühzeitige Neubesetzung von Schlüsselstellen sowie ein lückenloser Wissenstransfer. KW - Betriebliches Informationssystem KW - Insourcing KW - Backsourcing KW - Insourcing KW - IT-Sourcing KW - Re-Integration KW - IT-Service Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1365/s40702-020-00591-1 VL - 57 IS - 4 SP - 849 EP - 865 PB - Springer ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - von Bary, Benedikt A1 - Strahringer, Susanne T1 - Do Researchers Investigate what Practitioners Deem Relevant? Gaps Between Research and Practice in the Field of Information Systems Backsourcing T2 - 20th IEEE International Conference on Business Informatics (CBI) N2 - There is a common understanding amongst academics that information systems (IS) research sometimes has limited relevance for practitioners. This can be explained by the fact that research lags behind the fast moving IS environment, has limited practical applicability and is hard to access. We have focused on the research area of IS backsourcing, and analyzed practitioner literature to increase our understanding of topics of interest for practitioners, to determine a potential gap between academic and practitioner literature, and to identify future research directions in this field. We observed that most publications are either news or background articles, focusing on describing backsourcing cases. Additionally, we identified four recurring themes, namely reasons for backsourcing, presentation of survey results, discussion of industry trends, and backsourcing success stories. The main reasons identified to trigger backsourcing decisions are cost savings, quality improvements, and increasing control and flexibility. By comparing our findings with academic literature on IS backsourcing, we conclude that generally both literature types cover similar topics. However, researchers have a more formulative or interpretive focus than the often descriptive practitioner literature. Academic literature also examines a broader range of topics, while practitioner literature has a narrower focus. Additionally, we observe one difference regarding applied terminology: while researchers employ the term backsourcing, practitioners mostly use back in-house or insourcing. Our paper contributes to facilitating the exchange between academics and practitioners, presents topics to consider when aiming to increase practical relevance and provides researchers with concrete directions for future research within the field of IS backsourcing. KW - business data processing KW - globalisation KW - information systems KW - outsourcing Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/CBI.2018.00014 SP - 40 EP - 49 PB - IEEE ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Appelhans, Marie-Luise A1 - Kampmann, Matthias A1 - Mottok, Jürgen A1 - Riederer, Michael A1 - Nagl, Klaus A1 - Steffens, Oliver A1 - Dünnweber, Jan A1 - Wildgruber, Markus A1 - Roth, Julius A1 - Stadler, Timo A1 - Palm, Christoph A1 - Weiß, Martin Georg A1 - Rochholz, Sandra A1 - Bierl, Rudolf A1 - Gschossmann, Andreas A1 - Haug, Sonja A1 - Schmidbauer, Simon A1 - Koch, Anna A1 - Westner, Markus A1 - Bary, Benedikt von A1 - Ellermeier, Andreas A1 - Vögele, Daniel A1 - Maiwald, Frederik A1 - Hierl, Stefan A1 - Schlamp, Matthias A1 - Ehrlich, Ingo A1 - Siegl, Marco A1 - Hüntelmann, Sven A1 - Wildfeuer, Matthias A1 - Brückl, Oliver A1 - Sterner, Michael A1 - Hofrichter, Andreas A1 - Eckert, Fabian A1 - Bauer, Franz A1 - Dawoud, Belal A1 - Rabl, Hans-Peter A1 - Gamisch, Bernd A1 - Schmidt, Ottfried A1 - Heberl, Michael A1 - Thema, Martin A1 - Mayer, Ulrike A1 - Eller, Johannes A1 - Sippenauer, Thomas A1 - Adelt, Christian A1 - Haslbeck, Matthias A1 - Vogl, Bettina A1 - Mauerer, Wolfgang A1 - Ramsauer, Ralf A1 - Lohmann, Daniel A1 - Sax, Irmengard A1 - Gabor, Thomas A1 - Feld, Sebastian A1 - Linnhoff-Popien, Claudia A1 - Ławrowski, Robert Damian A1 - Langer, Christoph A1 - Schreiner, Rupert A1 - Sellmair, Josef ED - Baier, Wolfgang T1 - Forschung 2019 BT - Thema: Künstliche Intelligenz N2 - Bericht mit Forschungsprojekten aus verschiedenen Bereichen der OTH Regensburg mit dem Schwerpunktthema "Künstliche Intelligenz" und einem Gespräch zur "Medizin der Zukunft" T3 - Forschungsberichte der OTH Regensburg - 2019 KW - Forschung KW - Forschungsbericht KW - Künstliche Intelligenz Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:898-opus4-7890 SN - 978-3-9818209-7-3 CY - Regensburg ER -