Strategic and Tactical Perception Differences of Outsourcing Goal Achievement

While the boards of directors acting in their role as strategic planners make information systems (IS) process outsourcing decisions, it is tactical-level IS professionals who must implement outsourcing. The decision to outsource is driven by the perception of how organization's can achieve goals with this strategy. The question this paper explores is possible perceptual differences between decision making board members and those IS professionals who see the actual goal achievement. The result of this IS outsourcing in US commercial banks study reveals a significant difference in the perceptions between board members and IS professionals on a variety of differing strategic goals. Specifically, board members consistently and significantly rate the goal achievements of outsourcing at a higher level than IS professionals. The study also found that other factors, such as the bank size and outsourcing project size while significant, but do not alter the perceptual difference conclusions.