Introduction to the outsourcing of information systems minitrack

As a larger number of firms outsource their Information Systems (IS) services, the IS outsourcing landscape is getting more varied with the outsourcing alternatives becoming more numerous, including application services provision (ASP), offshoring, and strategic alliances. For several years, IS outsourcing studies were mainly aimed at explaining outsourcing decisions, so as to better understand the antecedents of an outsourcing decision or of the decision process itself. Recently, researchers? focus has moved towards the management of outsourcing relationships. Some have proposed models that depict the evolution of IT outsourcing relationships while others have attempted to identify drivers for successful relationship management, be they success factors or management mechanisms. All six papers that are included in this year?s mini-track on IS outsourcing present the results of studies that were aimed either at better understanding the outsourcing relationship or at proposing approaches for its successful management.