Introduction

Abstract

Outsourcing in general and IT outsourcing in particular have grown exponentially over the recent years. The academic literature on the topic has also burgeoned, exploring and investigating the phenomenon from different theoretical perspectives such as transaction cost economics, organizational knowledge, competitive business strategies, and value chain and so on. In conjunction with the academic literature, there has also been growth in the practitioner literature around outsourcing. But there is an absence of overlap between the two streams of literature. The practitioner-oriented literature by and large ignores academic theories while its scholarly counterpart focuses mainly on theoretical constructs that explains the ‘make or buy’ decision but provides little in terms of heuristics that practitioners can use in real business situations.