Outsourcing of Disaggregated Services in Cloud-Based Enterprise Information Systems

In this paper, we examine outsourcing of disaggregated information-intensive services. Drawing on the theoretical streams of Global Information-Intensive Service Disaggregation and Transaction-Cost Economics, we formulate our research model to understand the phenomenon of disaggregation in the context of cloud computing. The model encompasses frequency, asset specificity, uncertainty, information intensity, and need for customer contact as characteristics of tasks that we use to explain the outsourcing of disaggregated services. We are especially interested in understanding the interplay between these characteristics and the increasingly popular cloud-based systems. Our results partially support previous research on the effects of characteristics on outsourcing. The main finding of the paper is impact of the cloud-based information systems on the interaction of these characteristics.