Vendor's Boundary Spanning Behaviour in IT Outsourcing

IT outsourcing success depends on efficient management of client-vendor relationships, wherein, boundary spanners play a crucial role. Boundary spanners are individuals, who operate at the boundary of an organization, performing relevant tasks (Leifer & Delbecq, 1978). In this research we use a qualitative case research method to address the research question “How do boundary spanners influence client-vendor relationships in IT outsourcing engagements?” We have conducted in-depth case based studies of boundary spanners in medium and large Indian IT vendor organizations. The social capital framework guides inductive analysis in this study. The contribution of this study is three fold(i) develops propositions regarding how boundary spanners operate (ii) empirically validates the elements of social capital of Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) framework in an IT outsourcing context (iii) extends the existing social capital framework by trying to disentangle the constituent elements and develop a sequence of these elements for social capital formation.