Strategic Partnership Formation in IT Offshore Outsourcing: Institutional Elements for a Banking ERP System Licensing

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to design a conceptual model of institutional elements for the formation of a client-supplier strategic partnership in IT outsourcing, involving an ERP system license contract. The model resulted from a longitudinal case study performed in a Brazilian transnational bank with businesses in four continents. This bank is one of the 10 largest American banks in terms of assets volume. Qualitative content analysis technique evaluated data collected from interviews, documents, and observations. The results show the importance of a multidimensional institutional perspective with regulative, normative, and cognitive elements to structure a client-supplier partnership. The data analysis confirmed elements predefined in the theory developed as well as identified new ones.