Evaluating Relational Taxonomies of IT Offshoring and IT Offshoring Success: When Success and Failure are One and the Same

When can an information technology (IT) offshoring relationship be considered a success and failure at the same time? The literature is rich with offshoring relationships that have been described as being successful or as a failure. However, success or failure is often in the eye of the beholder. When evaluating offshoring success we propose that both process and outcome criteria be considered, where offshoring outcomes can be evaluated as a “failed success” (process success + outcome failure), or as a “successful failure” (process failure + outcome success), in addition to pure successes and failures. Building on buyer-seller relationship research, this dissertation develops dimensions that characterize the manner by which offshoring clients and vendors relate and evaluate their IT offshoring relationships. The dissertation will develop an empirically based classification of different types of offshoring relationships and investigate if success and failure depend on the emergent offshoring relationship taxonomy.