Governance of Interorganizational Information Systems: A Resource Dependence Perspective
Authors: Chatterjee, Dipanjan; Ravichandran, T.
Journal: Information Systems Research (2013)
<jats:p> In this paper we examine why firms seek to control and own interorganizational information systems, or IOS. Practitioners have largely cited the issues related to control and ownership of IOS, referred to as IOS governance in this paper, as the key reason behind the failure of many IOS initiatives. We distinguish between two IOS governance modes, transactional and financial, and develop a mediated-moderation model to explain the factors influencing the governance choices. In our model, the key motivators of IOS governance are the criticality and the replaceability of the resources that firms procure, which affect IOS governance through their influence on the degree of operational integration existing between partners. We hypothesize that while resource criticality will increase the needs for financial and transactional governance because of its positive impact on operational integration, resource replaceability will negatively influence governance needs because of its negative impact on operational integration. Furthermore, technological uncertainty associated with the resources is argued to negatively impact the extent of IOS governance exercised by firms by weakening th…