1. Formal control, social control and guanxi in IT outsourcing : a study in Chinese enterprises
- Author
-
Jiang, Wen and Jones, Julian
- Subjects
private enterprise ,state-owned enterprise ,case study ,Chinese enterprise ,formal control ,guanxi ,do-favor ,social control - Abstract
IT outsourcing becomes popular and grows fast in Chinese enterprises (i.e. Chinese state-owned enterprises and Chinese private enterprises) since it has been considered an important tool for enabling organizations to reduce the IT cost, improve the service quality and access scarce resources. Control plays an important role in IT outsourcing by integrating the complementary capabilities of the participants. However, most of the extant literatures focus on the study of control modes in western enterprises or studying IT outsourcing in China with the perspective of western control modes without considering the impact of Chinese culture. Hence this research explores control modes and the role of guanxi in IT outsourcing projects in Chinese enterprises. The approach of case study was utilized in the research. Four IT outsourcing projects from four Chinese enterprises are considered as unit of analysis. Data was gathered through one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with key figures of project team involving the clients and the vendors. Data analysis of in-case and cross-case is utilized. The findings accept the propositions that formal control exist in the west also prevails in Chinese enterprises but reject the proposition that social control is adopted in Chinese enterprises. The findings also accept the proposition that guanxi plays a role in contact and control stage but doesn't impact in contract stage of IT outsourcing project in Chinese enterprises. Do-favor caused by guanxi is considered as the complementary of formal control to solve the conflict in IT outsourcing project. The research contributes to the academic and the practice of control mode in IT outsourcing in China and contributes to understand guanxi in the context of IT outsourcing. But the research focuses on the positive impact of guanxi and the negative impact of guanxi should be further studied in future.
- Published
- 2022