Development of Measures to Assess Dimensions of IS Operation Transactions

Abstract

L'économie des organisations est souvent mise à contribution par les chercheurs en systèmes d'information (SI). Peu de travaux ont cependant proposé des instruments de mesure des dimensions transactionnelles des opérations de SI. Ce mémoire marque un pas dans cette direction. Nous proposons des instruments de mesure utiles à l'analyse de l'impartition des opérations informatiques. Quatre dimensions importantes des transactions informatiques retiennent notre attention : la spécificité des actifs, les problèmes de mesure, l'origine des investissements les plus importants et le mode de régie des transactions. Une analyse de moindres carrés partiels (Partial Least Squares) est effectuée à l'aide de données provenant de 250 grandes entreprises canadiennes.

Information Systems (IS) researchers often rely on organizational economics models to describe and explain various IS management issues. While those models are found to be useful, measures are yet to be proposed to assess the dimensions of IS transactions. In this paper, we present the results of a study that was a first effort toward this end. The focus of the study was on one type of transaction, IS operations, in a particular management context, that of outsouring. Measures were developed for four critical dimensions of IS operation transactions: asset specificity, measurement problem, origin of the most important investment, and governance mechanism. Data from 250 large Canadian firms were used to assess the measures, using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique.