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Examining the antecedent factors of online microsourcing

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Abstract

In this paper, we empirically investigate what motivates firms to engage in the new outsourcing practice known as online microsourcing. Five antecedent factors involved in making online microsourcing decisions, mainly representing economic and strategic considerations, were identified based on prior research. Our research model was tested with data collected from one of the primary online microsourcing platforms. Our findings suggested that online microsourcing decisions are made more for the convenience of management and for strategic reasons than for purposes of cost reduction. Thus, this study indicates the relevance of a resource-based theory for online microsourcing. Because online microsourcing is generally characterized by small outsourcing deals, with small firms as clients, this paper introduces a new outsourcing practice to the current outsourcing landscape. Finally implications for theory and practice are presented.

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Notes

  1. Information was accessed from the website of TopCoder: http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=pressroom&d2=pr_112906, accessed on 11 July 2012.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the Doctoral Fund of Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 20120133120005) and the Ministry of education of Humanities and Social Science project (Grant No. 13YJC630105). The authors are also very grateful to the editors and the three anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments and invaluable suggestions that have tremendously improved the quality this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics & Management, China University of Petroleum, 66 West Chang Jiang Rd, Qingdao, China, 26655

    Baozhou Lu

  2. Information Systems and Decision Sciences Department, E.J. Ourso College of Business, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Rudy Hirschheim & Andrew Schwarz

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  1. Baozhou Lu
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  2. Rudy Hirschheim
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Correspondence to Baozhou Lu.

Appendix

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Table 7 Instrument and measurement properties
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Table 8 Principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation
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Lu, B., Hirschheim, R. & Schwarz, A. Examining the antecedent factors of online microsourcing. Inf Syst Front 17, 601–617 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-013-9440-y

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