The effects of power and partnership on application service provider commitment, cooperation, and compliance

The growth of information technology (IT) outsourcing has dramatically increased during the 1990s by tens of billions of dollars annually. Part of this current growth may come from new kinds of outsourcing services such as application service providers (ASPs). But despite market growth, several of these outsourcing ventures are failing. Thus, if the IT outsourcing model, especially its new forms, is to succeed in the future it becomes necessary to identify how to successfully manage these complex relationships in order to ensure the delivery of high quality and consistently reliable IT products and services. Using an experimental methodology, this research investigates the impact of partnership quality and the client´s power on the service provider´s compliance, cooperation, and commitment. The results show that the client´s power and the quality of their partnership with the provider motivates the IT service provider to comply with the contractual obligations, cooperate with the client, and invest additional resources into the IT outsourcing relationship.