An empirical investigation into the adoption of open source software in Information Technology outsourcing organizations

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of outsourcing on open-source software (OSS) and further investigate the factors that impact the adoption of OSS in global information technology (IT) outsourcing organizations serviced by Indian IT services organizations. Design/methodology/approach – The authors developed a conceptual model that describes the factors influencing the OSS adoption by using the technology-organization-environment framework. This quantitative explanatory study used self-administered questionnaire to collect data from 482 middle and top management employees of Indian IT services organizations. The authors analyzed the data using partial least squares to test this conceptual model. Findings – The proposed conceptual model identified the factors which play a significant role in OSS adoption such as reliability, legal concern, software costs, management support, OSS support availability and software vendor. In contrast, this study did not find enough evidence that IT outsourcing was a significant determinant of OSS adoption. Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of the research is that it is focused on global IT outsourcing organizations (clients) serviced by Indian IT services providers (vendors). Hence, the authors cannot generalize the finding to other regions. Also, the analysis is based on the view point of employees in vendors. Views of clients’ employees must be analyzed and triangulated with current evidence. Practical implications – IT services providers can offer “OSS as a service” for its clients and help them address the gaps in support availability and achieve reduction in total cost of ownership of software. Originality/value – IT services providers can use this research model to increase their understanding of why some IT outsourcing organizations choose to adopt OSS, while seemingly similar ones facing similar market conditions do not.