Publication Date

1-1-2008

Abstract

Continuing exponential growth in the Information Technology (IT) outsourcing market implies a need to understand the negotiated Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that underlie the majority of those sourcing relationships. Knowledge of the negotiation processes that are associated with the development of IT SLAs is a necessary precondition for designing and developing Negotiation Support Systems (NSSs) intended to support those processes. To gain such knowledge, it is first necessary to identify theoretical perspectives that may be relevant to the IT SLA negotiation process, postulate reasonable propositions therefrom, and then evaluate those propositions in a practical, exploratory fashion. Accordingly, the current paper draws on socially-oriented perspectives to develop theory-driven propositions which are then evaluated in an experimental setting. The results of this study indicate that several socially-oriented theories may be relevant to the IT SLA negotiation process, and represent a starting point for the identification of context-specific IT SLA negotiation support systems.

Publication Title

International Journal of Services Sciences

Volume

1

Issue

3-4

First Page

267

Last Page

287

DOI

10.1504/IJSSci.2008.021766

Publisher Policy

publisher's pdf (with 6 month embargo)

Open Access Status

OA Deposit

Download

Find in your library

Share

COinS