IT Outsourcing as a Source of Open Innovation

Outsourcing has been considered as an important source of innovation, nowadays. The paradigm of open innovation suggests that valuable ideas may occur either inside or outside the company, as in the Information Technology (IT) outsourcing. In view of the emerging paradigm of open innovation, this paper analyzes the IT outsourcing process as an external source of open innovation. This research has a qualitative approach, adopting the strategy of studying multiple cases. The unit of analysis are three large companies, reference in their niches and aknowledged for their successful IT outsourcing practices. Results show that IT outsourcing is heavily influenced by costs reduction; however, innovation is perceived in the working methods resulting from the outsourcing process, being explained by the open innovation theory, since the source is external.