The Role of Vendor Legitimacy in IT Outsourcing Performance: Theory and Evidence
基于200家客户企业的调查，研究供应商合法性（包括实用、认知和道德三个维度）对信息技术外包绩效的影响，发现客户需在战略、运营和管理层面积极管理供应商合法性以提升绩效。
Information technology outsourcing (ITO) relationships today are facing increasingly turbulent environments. This research examines ITO performance by focusing on client firms’ perceived legitimacy of vendors, termed “vendor legitimacy,” consisting of pragmatic, cognitive, and moral dimensions. Based on our surveys with executives and managers at 200 ITO client firms, the study’s findings present the imperative to actively manage vendor legitimacy for achieving and sustaining ITO performance. Specifically, at the strategic level, clients’ perception of vendors as mutually aligned, long-term-oriented, tightly integrated partners is critical. At the operational level, clients should collaborate with vendors to design and establish interorganizational routines that undergird vendor legitimacy. At the managerial level, clients’ relational governance plays a pivotal role in attaining procedural justice, ethical standards, and fairness in the interorganizational collaboration. In sum, our study suggests that creating a dedicated corporate function or unit for continually overseeing and assessing a portfolio of vendors and swiftly identifying and responding to potential issues and crises related to vendor legitimacy would be a worthwhile investment.