Contractual or Relational? Effect of Environmental Uncertainty on IOS Governance

Extant literature has focused on the complementary or substitute relationship between contractual or relational governance in information systems (IS), however, only a few studies reveal the factors and their interactions which impact the decision making on inter-organizational information systems (IOS) governance mechanism. Due to the emerging multifirm environment and inter-organizational practice, choice of IOS governance is anything but trivial. This research identifies the determinants of IOS governance from the relational view, and examines the external context using environmental uncertainty. The moderate model of contingency analysis is applied to indicate how environmental factors affect the association between different types of relational assets and a specific kind of IOS governance mechanisms. Hypotheses are proposed for our theory development. This research aims to provide an insight into the decision-making on IOS mechanism and explores how relational and external contingencies interact for fit which leads to effective IOS governance.