Vendor or client: What are the important factors for SDO project success?

Abstract

SDO (Software Development Outsourcing) projects have been consistently increasing and expanding but also have many failures. In order to improve SDO performance, the factors affecting SDO performance are investigated in this study. SDO has relational risk as well as performance risk in nature, and the factors affecting the SDO performance caused by these mixed risks are drawn from the prior studies. With field survey targeted client IS personnel who experienced SDO, 214 survey questionnaires are collected and analyzed. Research results show that vendor power, client requirements certainty, goal clarity and goal alignment affect the SDO performance. However, vendor knowledge and client knowledge do not have much effect on SDO performance. The results of this study can be effectively utilized to decrease the failures of SDO and increase the possibility of success.