Information systems (IS) offshoring has become a widespread practice and a strategic sourcing choice for many firms. While much has been written by researchers about the factors that lead to successful offshoring arrangements from the client's viewpoint, the vendor's perspective has been largely scarce. The vendor perspective is equally important as offshore IS vendors need to make important decisions in terms of delivering operational and strategic performance and aligning their resources and processes in order to meet or exceed targeted outcomes. In this article, we propose and test a three-level capability-quality-performance (CQP) theoretical framework to understand vendor outcomes and their antecedents. The first level of the framework represents three vendor capabilities: relationship management, contract management, and information technology management. The second level has three mediating variables representing process quality: partnership, service, and deliverable quality. The third level has three dependent variables representing vendor outcomes: operational performance, strategic performance, and satisfaction. The model was tested with 188 vendor firms from India and China, the two most popular destinations for IS offshoring. Results support the CQP framework; vendor capabilities are significant predictors of intermediate quality † Corresponding author. 231 232 CQP of Offshore IS Vendors measures, which in turn affect vendor outcomes. Implications of the study findings to both theory development and IS offshore vendor strategic decision making are discussed.
The study examines the correlates of burnout in systems (IS) professionals. While there has been little previous research in the area of burnout among IS professionals, anecdotal evidence shows that burnout causes a negative impact on the peiformance of IS employees. These negative impacts can take the form of cynicism, dissatisfaction, and turnover (McGee, 1996). In this study we empirically examine the correlations of burnout with several work attributes that are considered to be either antecedents or consequences of burnout. Two role stressors are examined in this study -role ambiguity and role conflict. These variables are theorized to be antecedents of burnout. In addition, two dimensions of organizational commitment-affective and continuance commitment-are examined as possible consequences of burnout. The emotional exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory is used to measure burnout in 312 IS professionals. Both role stressors were found to co "elate positively with burnout. In addition, affective commitment was found to be negatively correlated and continuance commitment positively correlated with burnout.Job stress has been noted to be a key factor that can affect the performance and tenure of IS professionals. While little previous research has examined burnout in order to identify its antecedents and consequences among IS professionals, anecdotal evidence does suggest that burnout can have a significant impact on both the performance and commitment of IS employees.For example, McGee (1996) notes that burnout is the root cause of turnover among help-desk employees. In addition, she noted that burned-out help-desk analysts tended to take out their frustrations on the users they were trying to assist and that "burnout manifests itself in shortness with the customer; talking down to them" (p. 116).Other practical consequences of stress and burnout have also been identified in the psychology literature. Kahill (1988) grouped these consequences into five categories: physical, emotional, interpersonal, attitudinal, and behavioral. These
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