Reflections on the initial theoretical background to the research problem

In my initial meeting with the lead contact at the first case study organisation I quickly recognised that the framework I had initially developed (described above in section 3.3.2) had little direct relevance to his perspective of the outsourcing arrangement and the objectives and challenges it presented to his situation. I retained the theoretical basis but developed the questionnaire approach described in section 3.4.2 to deal with this. This seemed to work well across the two cases and

generated much useful data. However in the process of collecting, transcribing and analysing this I came to realise that some parts of the framework seemed more relevant to my research question (and interesting to the participants) than others. Discussions around the objective realities of outsourcing, the mechanics of

contracting, technology and the risks of opportunistic behaviour progressed in line with my expectations. The views of participants were generally consistent and where not, this could be explained. Discussions around the more socially oriented competences of both vendor and client organisations, who needed do what to make the outsourcing successful and how the innovative skills and knowledge of one party should be used by the other were more interesting. This was an area where different views existed between people, where problems existed or were foreseen, where the potential advantages of the outsourcing relationship were not being developed or where such development was difficult.

Reflecting on the theoretical framework I had developed, these interesting issues seemed to be focussed in the structural domain and in the relationship of this with the domain of knowledge. I had identified three inter-related factors within the structural domain: competence, collaboration and organisation but these somehow needed to be related to the knowledge resources of each party. I sketched the diagram shown in figure 3.2. as a start for working out how the theory I was using could be developed. Following further study of the literature, this sketch was later to be developed into the conceptual framework shown in Chapter 2 as figure 2.10.

164 Organisational ‘enclave’ created by outsourcing Non-assimilated knowledge (Valuable) Assimilated knowledge Vendor Client Management competences Management competences Technology Cost Governance Skills Transformation Goals (e.g) Constraints (e.g)

Figure 3.2: Initial ideas on theory development

Organisationally, outsourcing appeared to create a hybrid IT organisation in which the people of the vendor and client would interact, I decided to think of this as an organisational ‘enclave’. Each party brought its own knowledge and management competences into this enclave in which these would be combined in its newly created formal and informal organising and social structures. From a knowledge perspective, one goal of outsourcing was to access the skills of the vendor but these were of a generic nature; for example the vendor might have powerful knowledge of a particular IT application but limited understanding of how and why that application was used in the specific context of the client organisation. To be valuable to the client, the vendor’s generic knowledge needed to be assimilated with the client’s specific knowledge and the organisational enclave was the place where that had to happen.

Yet the organisational enclave existed to achieve a range of specified goals: cost management, access to skills and IT transformation were examples I encountered. It also had constraints placed on it from the governance processes the two parties had agreed and the legacy (of technology for example) that it had inherited.

I realised that the interactions between these factors and the complexity this created in the social world of the enclave possibly explained the diversity of opinion and

165

ideas that came up in the interviews, but I lacked a strong theoretical basis for describing or interpreting this. My initial theory framework (figure 3.1) was too simplistic in its postulated relationship between structure, collaboration and competence. It also included factors like information generation, risks of

opportunism and alignment of technology with organisation which interviewees found hard to engage with.

Hence I returned to the literature to develop in more detail a theoretical basis for understanding the social interactions in the organisational enclave created by outsourcing and their development over time. This led to the four theoretical

propositions that are derived from literature in chapter 2 and summarised at the start of chapter 6.

167

3.6 Conclusion

This chapter has described and justified the interpretive methodological approach selected for this thesis. Based on this it has set out the research questions and the original theoretical framework that informed these.

The choice of cases, methods of data collection and process of case analysis that led to the research findings of the thesis are also described. Ethical issues that emerge from the project are discussed and related to the ESRC framework for research ethics.

Reflection on the processes of fieldwork and compilation of the findings led to two conclusions. First, the data collection method was valid although care needs to be taken over interpretation of the more socially oriented factors where intersubjective meaning was created with research participants. Second, the original theoretical framework of the thesis was not adequate to describe or interpret the knowledge and competence interactions between client and vendor that were taking place in the constrained organisational ‘enclaves’ created by outsourcing.

To address the second conclusion a deeper theoretical framework, based on the interactions between knowledge and social capital in the IT system was constructed from literature. This set of theoretical propositions will serve as the basis for analysis of the case studies.

The next two chapters contain the case studies themselves which form the research findings of this thesis.

169