The institutional politics of change in an outsourced project

This paper focuses on unique longitudinal research within a multi-vendor outsourcing environment in the European Defence Sector. It describes the unfolding relationship between vendors and a major defence organization as the vendors developed, implemented and then managed a human resource management (HRM) system. This paper examines the apparent paradox between the wide scale adoption of outsourcing and its relatively poor performance and outcomes. The research suggests this comes from a loose coupling between the rational logic of outsourcing practice and the interpretation and enactment by interest groups that is exaggerated by the imposition of fixed deadlines and strong contractual governance.