System Development Service Quality: A Comparison of the In-House Development and the Application Outsourcing Environment

Very few studies have investigated the service quality of the system development process. In this study, an instrument based on SERVPERF's service quality dimensions, i.e., tangibles, reliability, empathy, responsiveness, and assurance, was developed to study the service quality for in-house and outsourced system development process. Analysis of the data collected from 152 system users who had also involved in the development of those systems supported the validity and reliability of the newly developed measures. The relative contribution of the individual service quality dimensions to the overall system development service quality was found to vary between the outsourcing and in-house group, so as the impact of the overall system development service quality on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. These results suggest that users may evaluate the services provided by outsourcing vendors and in-house IT personnel differently.