Drivers Of Software And Maintenance Sourcing Strategies: Economic, Psychological, And Social Factors

This paper reports in-progress research on factors driving software and maintenance sourcing decisions. It proposes that software and maintenance sourcing decisions are interrelated, and that these decisions, while driven primarily by economic,factors posited by Transaction Cost Theory, are moderated by psychological and sociological factors such as those identified in technology adoption and diffusion theories. The model development will be informed by case studies, and the constructs and causality tested by survey. The validated model will serve as the theoretical foundation for development of an analytical model and associated decision-support tool for aiding sourcing decisions as well as simulation models for understanding emergent behaviours among software and maintenance service providers and clients.