Negotiating behavior in service outsourcing. An exploratory case study analysis

Despite the well-documented importance of the outcome of negotiation for strategic success, little attention has been paid to negotiations in outsourcing agreements. In view of this gap in the literature, this paper addresses the contextual factors that better explain the negotiation behavior displayed in increasingly frequent service outsourcing agreements. Exploratory research, based on the analysis of four cases of a service outsourcing negotiation process, leads to a series of proposals that form the basis for a further research agenda. Our findings suggest that negotiating behavior in service outsourcing can be explained by the power relationship, time pressure and, in particular, by the type of service outsourced. The latter appears to influence the impact of other contextual factors on negotiating behavior.