Determinants of successful BYOT initiatives: A theoretical framework

Allowing members of organizations to use their personally-owned computing devices as well as applications and services primarily tailored to the consumer market for work-related purposes is a phenomenon commonly referred to as `bring your own technology' or BYOT. Both allowing BYOT and engaging in IT outsourcing arrangements imply higher permeability of organizational boundaries as the IT department delegates the continuous responsibility for the provision of specific IT functions to third-party vendor organizations in the case of IT outsourcing and to IT users within the organization in the case of BYOT, respectively. While there is a considerable amount of research on determinants of successful IT outsourcing, comparatively little work has been undertaken on BYOT so far. Based on commonalities between IT outsourcing and BYOT, and building upon the existing IT outsourcing literature, this paper proposes a theoretical framework that outlines potential determinants of successful BYOT initiatives. The framework covers determinants associated with contractual governance, relationship characteristics, organizational capabilities and characteristics, member capabilities, and decision characteristics.