Browsing by Author "Han, Kunsoo"

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    Are There Contagion Effects in IT Outsourcing?
    (Elsevier, 2011-11) Nault, Barrie R; Han, Kunsoo; Mann, Arti; Kauffman, Robert J.
    We model the diffusion of IT outsourcing using announcements about IT outsourcing deals. We estimate a lognormal diffusion curve to test whether IT outsourcing follows a pure diffusion process or there are contagion effects involved. The methodology permits us to study the consequences of outsourcing events, especially mega-deals with IT contract amounts that exceed US$1 billion. Mega-deals act, we theorize, as precipitating events that create a strong basis for contagion effects and are likely to affect decision-making by other firms in an industry. Then, we evaluate the role of different communication channels in the diffusion process of IT outsourcing by testing for the fit of the mixed influence model at the industry level. This helps us to evaluate the consistency of evidence at two different levels of analysis. We also evaluate two flexible diffusion models: the Gompertz and Weibull models. Our results show that the diffusion patterns of IT outsourcing do not appear to be lognormal, suggesting that IT outsourcing does not follow a pure diffusion process. Instead, we find the presence of contagion effects in the diffusion of IT outsourcing. During periods of the most rapid outsourcing growth – the contagion periods – the actions of the large and more visible firms may provide exemplars for smaller firms, reducing their inhibitions about committing to IT outsourcing. We also find that the results of the mixed influence and the Weibull models, which provide the best fit for overall IT outsourcing diffusion patterns, are potentially indicative of the existence of spillovers that might drive the observed contagion effects at the industry level.
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    Information Exploitation and Interorganizational Systems Ownership
    (M.E. Sharpe, Inc. - Part of Routledge, 2004) Nault, Barrie R; Han, Kunsoo; Kauffman, Robert J.
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    Relative Importance, Specific Investment and Ownership in Interorganizational Systems
    (Springer, 2008-09) Nault, Barrie R; Han, Kunsoo; Kauffman, Robert J.
    Implementation and maintenance of interorganizational systems (IOS) require investments by all the participating firms. Compared with intraorganizational sys- tems, however, there are additional uncertainties and risks. This is because the benefits of IOS investment depend not only on a firm’s own decisions, but also on those of its business partners. Without appropriate levels of investment by all the firms participating in an IOS, they cannot reap the full benefits. Drawing upon the literature in institutional economics, we examine IOS ownership as a means to induce value-maximizing noncontractible investments. We model the impact of two factors derived from the theory of incomplete contracts and transaction cost economics: relative importance of investments and specificity of investments. We apply the model to a vendor-managed inventory system (VMI) in a supply chain setting. We show that when the specificity of investments is high, this is a more critical determinant of optimal ownership structure than the relative importance of investments. As technologies used in IOS become increasingly redeployable and reusable, and less specific, the relative importance of investments becomes a dominant factor. We also show that the bargaining mechanism—or the agreed upon approach to splitting the incremental payoffs—that is used affects the relationship between these factors in determining the optimal ownership structure of an IOS.