Article

Issues in relationship management for obtaining the benefits of a shared service center

Authors:

Marijn Janssen,

Anton JohaAuthors Info & Claims

ICEC '04: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Electronic commerce

Pages 219 - 228

https://doi.org/10.1145/1052220.1052249

Published: 25 March 2004 Publication History

Abstract

Shared service centers (SSCs) are gaining importance in public administration as a means to innovate, reduce costs and increase service levels. By unbundling and concentrating activities, the basis premise for a SSC seems to be that services provided by one local department can be provided to others with relatively few efforts. Within public agencies there is a debate about how to manage SSCs to gain the benefits expected. The goal of this research is to investigate how to deal with management issues to obtain the promised benefits. It is likely that many of the issues and managerial problems can be associated with more traditional forms of outsourcing. Therefore we investigate a case study based on insights from outsourcing literature and the framework of Kern and Willcocks proposed in the relationship advantage. The framework was found to be appropriate for analyzing our case study. The management of a SSC demands complicated relationships consisting of a mix of cooperative and competitive characteristics. The outcomes of this case study have resulted in a number of observations about SSCs and also about the differences between the management of relationships in SSCs and outsourcing.

References

[1]

Alborz S., Seddon, P. B., and Scheepers, R., Impact of Configuration on IT Outsourcing Relationships, AMCIS, 2004

[2]

Allen, B. A., Juillet, L., Paquet, P., and Roy, J. E-Governance & government on-line in Canada: Partnerships, people & prospects, Government Information Quarterly, 18 (2001), 93--104.

[3]

Baldwin, L. P., Irani, Z., and Love, P. E. D., "Outsourcing Information Systems: drawing lessons from a banking case study", European Journal of Information Systems, 10, 1 (2001), 15--24.

Digital Library

[4]

Bendor-Samuel, P., Outsourcing relationships: why are they so difficult to manage?, Everest Group, 2002.

[5]

Bergeron, B. Essentials of Shared Services, John Wiley & Sons, 2003.

[6]

Beulen, E. and Ribbers, P., IT Outsourcing Contracts: Practical Implications of the Incomplete Contract Theory, Proceedings of the 36th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Hawaii, 2003.

Digital Library

[7]

Borgers, M. Het bestaansrecht van het IT-servicecenter. Informatie, Informatie, 45 (March, 2003), 14--19.

[8]

Feeny, D., and Willcocks, L. (1998). Core IS Capabilities for Exploiting IT. Sloan Management Review, 39, 3 (1998), 1--26.

[9]

Janssen, M., and Joha, A., De onzekere belofte van het shared-servicecenter. Informatie, 46, 6 (August, 2004), 26--31.

[10]

Janssen, M., and Wagenaar R. W. (2004). An Analysis of a Shared Services Center in E-government. Proceedings of the Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences, January 5 - 8, 2004, Big Island, Hawaii.

Digital Library

[11]

Kern T., and Willcocks L. P., The Relationship Advantage: Information Technologies, Management and Sourcing. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001.

Digital Library

[12]

Kern, T., and Willcocks, L., "Exploring relationships in information technology outsourcing: the interaction approach", European Journal of Information Systems, 2002.

[13]

Lacity, M., and Willcocks, L., "Relationships in IT Outsourcing: a Stakeholder Perspective", Oxford: Templeton College, 2000.

[14]

Lacity, M. C., and Willcocks, L. P., Global IT Outsourcing: In search of business advantages. Wiley, Chichester, 2002.

[15]

Lee, J. N., Huynh, M. Q., Kwok, R. C. W., and Pi, S. M. "IT Outsourcing Evolution. Past, Present and Future". Communications of the ACM, 46, 5 (2003), 84--89.

Digital Library

[16]

McFarlan, W. E., and Nolan, R. L. How to manage an IT outsourcing alliance. Sloan Management Reviews. Winter 1995.

[17]

Morgan, R. M., and Hunt, S. D. "The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing", Journal of Marketing, 58, (1994), 20--38.

[18]

Strikwerda, J., Shared Service Centers: Van kostenbesparing naar waardecreatie. Koninklijke Van Gorcum, 2003.

[19]

Venkatraman, N., Managing Information Technology Resources as a Value Center: the Leadership Challenge, in: Willcocks, L. P. and Lester, S., "Beyond the IT Productivity Paradox", John Wiley & Sons, 1999.

[20]

Willcocks, L., and Lacity, M. C. Best Practice in Information Technology Outsourcing. Templeton College, Oxford, 1997.

[21]

Williamson, O. E., Market and Hierarchies, Analysis and Antitrust Implications. A study in the economics of internal organization. Macmillan, New York, 1975.

[22]

Yin, R. K. (1989). Case Study Research: Design and methods. Sage publications, Newbury Park, California.

Cited By

Vieru DBourdeau SBourdeau M(2019)Knowledge Boundary Spanning Mechanisms in a Shared Services Centre ContextCSR und Hochschulmanagement10.1007/978-3-030-15850-7_5(76-100)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15850-7_5
Banoun ARochette C(2017)Le gestionnaire public au cœur de logiques contradictoiresRevue Française de Gestion10.3166/rfg.2017.0013543:266(11-30)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.3166/rfg.2017.00135
Kennewell SBaker L(2016)Benefits and risks of shared services in healthcareJournal of Health Organization and Management10.1108/JHOM-03-2014-004430:3(441-456)Online publication date: 16-May-2016
https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-03-2014-0044
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Issues in relationship management for obtaining the benefits of a shared service center

Recommendations

Motives for establishing shared service centers in public administrations

Shared service centers (SSCs) have gained the interest of politicians and public administrations to improve efficiency. By unbundling and centralizing activities, the basic premise for SSCs seems to be that services provided by one local department can ...
Issues in managing information technology (IT) professionals
SIGMIS-CPR '13: Proceedings of the 2013 annual conference on Computers and people research
The purpose of our panel is to understand:
- issues that Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are currently facing or expect to be facing in the next few (e.g., 3-5) years with regard to managing people responsible for information systems and technology; ...
Complex outsourcing relationships management model
Abstract
Global software development (GSD) refers to developing software with a distributed team spanning multiple locations and time zones. Based on relationships, there are four types of outsourcing: dyadic (one client–one vendor), multi‐vendor (one ...

The proposed complex outsourcing relationships management model (CORMM) approach assists the stakeholders in the complex outsourcing relationships. The study also shares the results of the two case studies to highlight the efficacy and performance of the ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

ICEC '04: Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Electronic commerce

March 2004

684 pages

ISBN:1581139306

DOI:10.1145/1052220

Copyright © 2004 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

ICEC: International Center for Electronic Commerce

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 25 March 2004

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 150 of 244 submissions, 61%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

14
Total Citations
View Citations
2,667
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)13
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0

Reflects downloads up to 01 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Vieru DBourdeau SBourdeau M(2019)Knowledge Boundary Spanning Mechanisms in a Shared Services Centre ContextCSR und Hochschulmanagement10.1007/978-3-030-15850-7_5(76-100)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2019
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15850-7_5
Banoun ARochette C(2017)Le gestionnaire public au cœur de logiques contradictoiresRevue Française de Gestion10.3166/rfg.2017.0013543:266(11-30)Online publication date: 8-Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.3166/rfg.2017.00135
Kennewell SBaker L(2016)Benefits and risks of shared services in healthcareJournal of Health Organization and Management10.1108/JHOM-03-2014-004430:3(441-456)Online publication date: 16-May-2016
https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-03-2014-0044
Beimborn D(2013)The stability of cooperative sourcing coalitions ‐ game theoretical analysis and experimentElectronic Markets10.1007/s12525-013-0128-424:1(19-36)Online publication date: 23-Apr-2013
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-013-0128-4
Nasir IAbbott PFitzgerald G(2011)Shared Services Centres: A Case Study on a Dispersed Services Oriented OrganizationNew Studies in Global IT and Business Service Outsourcing10.1007/978-3-642-24815-3_10(175-200)Online publication date: 2011
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24815-3_10
Ulbrich F(2010)Adopting shared services in a public‐sector organizationTransforming Government: People, Process and Policy10.1108/175061610110652264:3(249-265)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2010
https://doi.org/10.1108/17506161011065226
Joha AJanssen M(2010)Public‐private partnerships, outsourcing or shared service centres?Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy10.1108/175061610110652174:3(232-248)Online publication date: 3-Aug-2010
https://doi.org/10.1108/17506161011065217
Joha AJanssen MShulman SMorales O(2009)Comparing strategic intents for public-private partnerships, outsourcing and shared servicesProceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data and Government10.5555/1556176.1556228(283-292)Online publication date: 17-May-2009
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1556176.1556228
Sterba CGrechenig TPazderka M(2008)Outsourcing as a strategy for IT harmonizationProceedings of the 2nd international conference on Theory and practice of electronic governance10.1145/1509096.1509146(245-250)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1509096.1509146
(2007)ICEBE 2007 Keynote IIProceedings of the IEEE International Conference on e-Business Engineering10.1109/ICEBE.2007.60Online publication date: 24-Oct-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICEBE.2007.60
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten