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Understanding knowledge re-intergration in back sourcing

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journal contribution
posted on 2016-09-16, 13:00 authored by Kayode Ejodame, Ilan Oshri
Backsourcing is the process where a client firm brings previously outsourced services from a supplier back in-house. Traditionally, the existing literature on backsourcing has focused on how firms reach the decision to bring back previously outsourced services. In this paper, we move beyond focusing on IT backsourcing decision to explore the process of backsourcing from a knowledge perspective. The predominant view in the relevant literature argues that the re-acquisition of knowledge by a client firm during backsourcing takes place similarly to knowledge acquisition by a supplier in a typical outsourcing process. In this paper, we argue that knowledge re-integration in backsourcing occurs differently from outsourcing projects mainly because of the existence of knowledge asymmetries between the client and the supplier. By examining seven backsourcing events, we reveal that knowledge transfer and re-integration in backsourcing emerges as a coordinative activity, complementing knowledge transfer mechanisms reported in the IS outsourcing literature.

History

School

  • Business and Economics

Department

  • Business

Published in

Journal of Information Technology

Citation

EJODAME, K. and OSHRI, I., 2017. Understanding knowledge re-intergration in back sourcing. Journal of Information Technology, 33 (2), pp.136-150.

Publisher

Palgrave Macmillan © Association for Information Technology Trust

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2016-07-06

Publication date

2017

Notes

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of Information Technology. The definitive publisher-authenticated version EJODAME, K. and OSHRI, I., 2017. Understanding knowledge re-intergration in back sourcing. Journal of Information Technology, 33 (2), pp.136-150 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41265-016-0007-5.

ISSN

0268-3962

Language

  • en