literature review outsourcing services

Review of the Empirical Business Services Sourcing Literature: An Update and Future Directions

• First Online: 03 June 2017

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• Mary C. Lacity 4 ,
• Shaji A. Khan 5 &
• Aihua Yan 5  

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14 Citations

The 2010 Journal of Information Technology ( JIT ) article, ‘A Review of the IT Outsourcing Empirical Literature and Future Research Directions’, analyzed 741 findings on the determinants of information technology outsourcing (ITO) decisions and outcomes from 164 empirical articles published between 1992 and 2010. Using the same coding method, the 2011 JIT article, ‘Business Process Outsourcing Studies: A Critical Review and Research Directions’, analyzed 615 findings on the determinants of business process outsourcing (BPO) decisions and outcomes from 67 empirical articles published between 1996 and 2011. Taken together, these two reviews found that the preponderance of evidence from both ITO and BPO research streams produced largely consistent results pertaining to the categories of independent variables that affected outsourcing decisions and outcomes. To investigate the most current research findings on business services, which comprise ITO and BPO, and to compare the results with the prior JIT reviews, we replicated the method used in the prior JIT reviews. In this update, we examined 174 newly published articles across 78 academic journals published between 2010 and 2014. We found that researchers have significantly expanded the variables of interest in the last 4 years. In all, researchers investigated 69 new variables. Compared with earlier research, this review of recent articles found a deeper exploration of the direct effects of transaction attributes, sourcing motivations, client and provider capabilities, and governance on sourcing decisions and outcomes. Researchers have also studied a broader variety of sourcing decisions, including shared services, captive centers, rural sourcing, and backsourcing. This update also found a more nuanced understanding of relational governance and its interaction with contractual governance. We assessed the research progress that has been made on 10 previously identified gaps in knowledge. We proposed a future research agenda that includes continued, incremental progress on ‘normal science’ research questions, as well as more ambitious research goals. We challenged researchers to investigate how sourcing clients, providers, and advisors can protect jobs, protect the environment, and ensure security in an increasingly automated world.

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College of Business Administration, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Mary C. Lacity

College of Business, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Ave, Hong Kong

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Department of Management, London School of Economics, London, United Kingdom

Leslie P. Willcocks

College of Business Administration, University of Missouri, SAINT LOUIS, Missouri, USA

University of Oxford , Oxford, United Kingdom

Chris Sauer

Master codes

* Indicates a new variable that was not coded before in Lacity, Rottman, and Khan, ( 2010 ) or Lacity et al. ( 2011 ).

1. Absorptive capacity – client: A client organization’s ability to scan, acquire, assimilate, and exploit valuable knowledge (e.g., Grimpe and Kaiser, 2010 ; Reitzig and Wagner, 2010 ).

2. Absorptive capacity – provider: A provider organization’s ability to scan, acquire, assimilate, and exploit valuable knowledge (e.g., Luo et al. , 2010 ). (Previously called ‘Absorptive Capacity – Supplier’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

3. Access to expertise/skills: A client organization’s desire or need to access provider skills/expertise (e.g., Currie et al. , 2008 ; Lam and Chua, 2009 ).

4. Access to global markets: A client organization’s desire or need to gain access to global markets by outsourcing to providers in those markets (e.g., Gorp et al. , 2007 ).

5. Adaptability: The extent to which a party is able to adapt a business service to meet changes in the environment (e.g., Sia et al. , 2008 ).

6. * Adherence to environmental standards: The degree to which an organization has embraced or been certified as following ecological standards such as ISO 26000, Carbon Disclosure Project, UN Global Compact (e.g., Babin and Nicholoson, 2011 ).

7. * Asset complementarity: The degree to which a set of assets is uniquely complementary (e.g., Argyres and Zenger, 2012 ).

8. Asset Specificity: The degree to which an asset can be redeployed to alternative uses and by alternative users without sacrifice of productive value (Williamson, 1976 ; Sia et al. , 2008 ).

9. Asset specificity – human: The degree to which a human asset can be redeployed to alternative uses and by alternative users without sacrifice of productive value (e.g., Alvarez-Suescun, 2010 ).

10. Asset specificity – physical: The degree to which a physical asset can be redeployed to alternative uses and by alternative users without sacrifice of productive value (e.g., Alvarez-Suescun, 2010 ).

11. * Boundary spanning capability – client: A client firm’s external BPs that bridge the internal and external boundaries. That is client firm processes that ease the organizational and national boundaries between clients and service providers (e.g., Du and Pan, 2013 ).

12. * Boundary spanning capability – provider: A service provider firm’s external BPs that bridge the internal and external boundaries. That is provider firm processes that ease the organizational and national boundaries between clients and service providers (e.g., Du and Pan, 2013 ).

13. Business service management capability – client: The ability of a client organization to efficiently and effectively manage a BP/service using in-house resources (e.g., McIvor et al. , 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Business Process Management Capability – Client’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

14. Business service management capability – provider: The ability of a provider organization to efficiently and effectively manage a BP/service (e.g., Saxena and Bharadwaj, 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Business Process Management Capability – Supplier’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

15. Business strategic type: An organization’s strategy to address three fundamental business problems – entrepreneurial, engineering, and administrative. Categorized under the Miles and Snow typology as defenders, prospectors, analyzers, and reactors (Miles and Snow, 1978 ; Shih et al. , 2005 ; Kenyon and Meixell, 2011 ).

16. Career development of employees: A client organization’s desire or need to provide better career opportunities for employees (e.g., Lacity et al. , 2004 ).

17. Centralization: The degree to which an organization’s resources, services, or decision-making are concentrated within a particular group or location (e.g., Delmotte and Sels, 2008 ). (Previously called ‘Centralization of Department’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

18. Change catalyst: A client organization’s desire or need to bring about large scale changes in the organization (e.g., Gospel and Sako, 2010 ).

19. Change management capability – client: The extent to which a client organization effectively manages change (e.g., Lacity et al. , 2004 ). (Previously called ‘Change Management Capability’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

20. * Change management capability – provider: The extent to which a provider organization effectively manages change (e.g., Lacity et al. , 2011 ).

21. * CIO power: The level of influence of the head of the IT function (e.g., Chakrabarty and Whitten, 2011 ; Gefen et al. , 2011 ).

22. Client – Provider alignment: The degree to which client and provider incentives, motives, interests, and/or goals are aligned (e.g., Sen and Shiel, 2006 ). (Previously called ‘Client–Supplier Alignment’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

23. Client – Provider interface design: The planned structure on where, when, and how client and provider employees work, interact, and communicate (e.g., Sen and Shiel, 2006 ). (Previously called ‘Client–Supplier Interface Design’ in Lacity, Rottman, & Khan, 2010 ).

24. Client age: The age of a client organization in years (e.g., Delmotte and Sels, 2008 ).

25. * Client business change: The degree to which the client’s business structure or leadership change through mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and/or C-suite turnover (e.g., Mathew and Das Aundhe, 2011 ).

26. Client experience with outsourcing: The situation in which the client has prior outsourcing experience (e.g., Alvarez-Suescun, 2010 ).

27. Client management capability: The extent to which a provider organization is able to effectively manage client relationships (e.g., Howells et al. , 2008 ).

28. Client outsourcing readiness: The extent to which a client organization is prepared to engage an outsourcing provider by having realistic expectations and a clear understanding of internal costs and services compared with outsourced costs and services (e.g., McIvor et al. , 2009 ).

29. * Client power: The degree of power the client has over the provider, measured as a percentage of the provider’s revenues (e.g., Susarla et al. , 2010b ).

30. * Client prestige: The degree to which a client is widely regarded and respected (e.g., Handley and Benton, 2012 ).

31. Client size: The size of a client organization usually measured as total assets, sales, and/or number of employees (e.g., Handley and Benton, 2012 ).

32. * Client size – Department: The size of a client’s department or function considering outsourcing, usually measured as total assets, sales, and/or number of employees in that department (e.g., Chakrabarty and Whitten, 2011 ).

33. Client-specific knowledge required: The degree to which a unit of work requires a significant amount of understanding/knowledge about unique client systems, processes, or procedures (e.g., McKenna and Walker, 2008 ).

34. * Client–Provider coordination processes: The extent to which coordination and communication processes are present between a provider and its client during project execution. These include aspects such as presence of provider liaisons, accurate and complete project documentation, project status reports, and issue remediation processes (e.g., Gopal et al. , 2011 ).

35. Commitment: The degree to which partners pledge to continue the relationship (e.g., Levina and Su, 2008 ).

36. Communication: The degree to which parties are willing to openly discuss their expectations, directions for the future, their capabilities, and/or their strengths and weaknesses (e.g., Gainey and Klaas, 2003 ).

37. * Competition in client firm environment: The presence of multiple, reputable, and trustworthy firms within a client’s industry (e.g., Mithas et al. , 2013 ).

38. * Compliance: A client organization’s need to desire to improve compliance (e.g., Iveroth, 2010 ).

39. Concern for security/intellectual property: A client organization’s concerns about security of information, transborder data flow issues, and protection of IP (e.g., Wullenweber et al. , 2008 ).

40. Configurational approach: The client firm matches multiple factors in configurations that maximize their chances of outsourcing success. For example, matching strategic intent with contractual governance, matching transaction attributes with contractual governance (e.g., Sen and Shiel, 2006 ; Saxena and Bharadwaj, 2009 ).

41. Conflict resolution: The degree to which clients and providers quickly, fairly, and meaningfully resolve disputes (e.g., Wullenweber et al. , 2008 ).

42. Conflict resolution approach: The type of approach used to handle a conflict between clients and providers. Types of approaches include integrating, accommodating, compromising, collaborative, and avoiding (e.g., Lacity and Willcocks, 2014 ).

43. Contract detail: The number or degree of detailed clauses in the outsourcing contract, such as clauses that specify prices, service levels, key process indicators, benchmarking, warranties, and penalties for nonperformance (e.g., Handley and Benton, 2009 ; Luo et al. , 2010 ).

44. Contract duration: The duration of the contract in terms of time (e.g., Willcocks et al. , 2004 ).

45. Contract flexibility: The degree to which a contract specifies contingencies and enables parties to change contractual terms (e.g., Sia et al. , 2008 ).

46. Contract management capability – client: The extent to which a client organization is able to effectively prepare, negotiate, and manage contracts with providers, including the ability to track service levels and verify invoices (e.g., Sanders et al. , 2007 ). (Previously called ‘Contract Management Capability’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

47. * Contract management capability – provider: The extent to which a provider organization is able to effectively prepare, negotiate, and manage contracts with clients (e.g., Agrawal et al. , 2012 ).

48. Contract size: The size of the outsourcing contract usually measured as the total value of the contract in monetary terms (e.g., Gewald and Gellrich, 2007 ).

49. Contract type: A term denoting different forms of contracts used in outsourcing. Examples include customized, fixed-priced, time and materials, fee-for-service, gainsharing, and partnership-based contracts (e.g., McFarlan and Nolan, 1995 ; Poppo and Zenger, 2002 ; Ross and Beath, 2006 ; Gopal and Koka, 2010 ).

50. * Contractual governance: A general term that captures the overall formal and legally binding written rules designed to influence interorganizational behavior (e.g., Bachlechner et al. , 2014 ).

51. Control mechanisms: Certain means or devices a controller uses to promote desired behavior by the controlee (e.g., Daityari et al. , 2008 ).

52. Convenience: A client organization’s desire to select a sourcing option based on ease of use, convenience, and less frustration (e.g., McKenna and Walker, 2008 ).

53. Cooperation: The degree to which client and provider employees are willing to work together in common pursuit (e.g., Wullenweber et al. , 2008 ).

54. * Coopetition: The degree to which competitors cooperate (e.g., Wiener and Saunders, 2014a ).

55. * Corporate social responsibility capability – client: A client organization’s ability to behave in a socially responsible way, such as promoting environmental responsibility, promoting fair labor practices, and engaging in philanthropy (e.g., Babin and Nicholson, 2011 ).

56. Corporate social responsibility capability – provider: A provider organization’s ability to behave in a socially responsible way, such as promoting environmental responsibility, promoting fair labor practices, and engaging in philanthropy (e.g., Brown, 2008 ). (Previously called ‘Corporate Social Responsibility-Supplier’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

57. Cost reduction: A client organization’s need or desire to reduce costs of providing a service (e.g., Borman, 2006 ).

58. Country: The nationality of the client or provider organization (e.g., Reitzig and Wagner, 2010 ).

59. Country – business attractiveness: The degree to which a country is attractive to outsourcing clients or providers because of favorable business environmental factors such as economic stability, political stability, cultural compatibility, infrastructure quality, security of IP (e.g., Doh et al. , 2009 ; Malos, 2010 ).

60. Country – financial attractiveness: The degree to which a country is attractive to outsourcing clients or providers because of favorable financial factors such as labor costs, taxes, regulatory, and other costs (e.g., Doh et al. , 2009 ; Malos, 2010 ).

61. Country – human resource attractiveness: The degree to which a country is attractive to outsourcing clients or providers because of favorable people skills and availability factors such as size of labor pool, education, language skills, experience, and attrition rates (e.g., Mehta et al. , 2006 ; Malos, 2010 ).

62. * Country selection: A client or provider’s decision to locate in a particular country (e.g., Massini et al. , 2010 ).

63. * Country size: The size of the country, typically measured by GDP, population, or services exports, and so on (e.g., Hahn et al. , 2011 ).

64. Criticality of service: The degree to which a client organization views the business service as a critical enabler of business success (e.g., Klaas et al. , 2001 ; Wahrenburg et al. , 2006 ). (Previously called ‘Critical Role of Business Process – Organization’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 ).

65. Cultural distance: The extent to which the members of two distinct groups (such as client and provider organizations) differ on one or more cultural dimensions (e.g., Mehta et al. , 2006 ).

66. Cultural distance management: The extent to which client and provider organizations understand, accept, and adapt to cultural differences (e.g., Tate et al. , 2009 ).

67. Culture: Shared values, beliefs, practices, and assumptions that characterize a group (e.g., Rajeev and Vani, 2009 ).

68. * Degree of internationalization – client: The geographic reach of a client – local, regional, country, international, or global (e.g., Whitaker et al. , 2010 ).

69. * Degree of internationalization – provider: The geographic reach of a provider – local, regional, country, international, or global (e.g., Cha and Quan, 2011 ).

70. Delivery capability: A provider’s ability to deliver a contracted service on time, on budget, and with agreed upon service quality (e.g., Howells et al. , 2008 ).

71. Department performance: CXO’s, CEO’s, or organizational members’ perceptions of the function’s performance or competence (e.g., Klaas et al. , 2001 ).

72. Department power: The level of influence of the department on the organization (e.g., Dunbar and Phillips, 2001 ).

73. Department size: The size of a department or business function usually measured as number of employees (e.g., Calantone and Stanko, 2007 ).

74. Domain understanding: The extent to which a provider has prior experience and/or understanding of the client organization’s business and technical contexts, processes, practices, and requirements (e.g., Luo et al. , 2010 ).

75. Evaluation process – client assessment: The client organization’s process for evaluating its own services to determine which are critical or outsourcing ready (e.g., Handley, 2012 ). (Previously called ‘Evaluation Process’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

76. Evaluation process – provider selection: The client organization’s process for evaluating and selecting providers (e.g., Handley and Benton, 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Evaluation Process’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

77. External production cost advantage: The degree to which a provider is perceived to have an advantage over a client organization in production cost economies (e.g., Williamson, 1991 ; Rajeev and Vani, 2009 ).

78. Fear of losing control: A client organization’s concerns that outsourcing may result in loss of control over the service (e.g., Lewin and Peeters, 2006 ; Sanders et al. , 2007 ).

79. * Firm ownership structure – client: The client’s ownership structure: private, public, jointly owned with primary provider (e.g., Rai et al. , 2012 ).

80. Firm ownership structure – provider: The provider’s ownership structure: private, public, jointly owned with primary client (e.g., Jayaraman et al. , 2013 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier Ownership’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 ).

81. Flexibility enablement: A client organization’s desire or need to increase the flexibility of the use and allocation of resources (e.g., Tate and Ellram, 2009 ).

82. Focus on core capabilities: A client organization’s desire or need to outsource in order to focus on its core capabilities (e.g., Carey et al. , 2006 ; Gewald and Dibbern, 2009 ).

83. * Functional spend: The annual operating budget for a function or department (e.g., Kobelsky and Robinson, 2010 ).

84. Geographic distance: The physical distance between two locations (e.g., Doh et al. , 2009 ).

85. Human resource management capability – client: A client organization’s ability to identify, acquire, develop, retain, and deploy human resources to achieve its organizational objectives (e.g., Klaas et al. , 2001 ).

86. Human resource management capability – provider: A provider organization’s ability to identify, acquire, develop, retain, and deploy human resources to achieve both provider’s and client’s organizational objectives (e.g., Kuruvilla and Ranganathan, 2010 ).

87. Industry: The primary industry classification of a client organization. Common classifications include service vs manufacturing, SIC codes, and so on (e.g., Bardhan et al. , 2007 ; Mani et al. , 2010 ).

88. Industry growth: The increase or decrease in the size of a market (e.g., Budhwar et al. , 2006 ).

89. Influences – coercive: Influences that result from both formal and informal pressures exerted on an organization by other organizations upon which they are dependent (e.g., DiMaggio and Powell, 1991 ; Bignoux, 2011 ).

90. Influences – external and internal: The combination of external media, provider pressure, and internal communications at the personal level among managers of companies (e.g., Borman, 2006 ).

91. Influences – mimetic: Influences that arise from the perception that peer organizations are more successful, by modeling themselves based on peer organizations, the mimicking organization aims to achieve similar results (e.g., Klaas et al. , 2001 ).

92. * Information asymmetry: The degree to which one party has information that is unknown to another party in a transaction (e.g., Devos et al. , 2012 ).

93. * Information quality: The degree to which information fits its intended use and is accurate, relevant, timely, and complete (e.g., Bustinza et al. , 2010 ).

94. Innovation: A client organization’s desire or need to use sourcing as an engine for innovation (e.g., Ciravegna and Maielli, 2011 ).

95. Innovation effects: The extent to which outsourcing positively effects a client’s innovation, such as the effects on the number of patents filed or granted (e.g., Grimpe and Kaiser, 2010 ).

96. * Innovativeness – client: The degree to which a client introduces new technologies, processes, services, and methods in their own organization (e.g., Weigelt and Sarkar, 2012 ).

97. * Innovativeness – provider: The degree to which a provider introduces new technologies, processes, services, and methods in their own organization and/or the client’s organization (e.g., Jean et al. , 2010 ).

98. Key performance indicators: A set of measures to assess performance (e.g., De Toni et al. , 2007 ; Mahmoodzadeh et al. , 2009 ).

99. * Knowledge formalization: The degree to which clients and providers can formalize/codify requirements (e.g., Aubert et al. , 2011 ).

100. Knowledge required: The degree to which a unit of work requires a significant amount of understanding/knowledge about unique, specialized, or advanced content (e.g., Lam and Chua, 2009 ).

101. Knowledge sharing: The degree to which clients and providers share and transfer knowledge (e.g., Mahmoodzadeh et al. , 2009 ) (Previously called ‘Effective Knowledge sharing in Lacity et al. , 2011 ).

102. Legal and political uncertainties: The extent to which a location’s legal and political environments are uncertain, unstable, or unfamiliar (e.g., Currie et al. , 2008 ; Penfold, 2009 ).

103. Length of relationship: The number of years a client and a provider organization has worked together (e.g., Gainey and Klaas, 2003 ).

104. Loss of control: The degree to which a client loses control over a business service after outsourcing (e.g., Sanders et al. , 2007 ).

105. * Loss of knowledge: The degree to which a client loses knowledge about a business service after outsourcing (e.g., Kien et al. , 2010 ).

106. Measurement difficulty: The degree of difficulty in measuring performance of exchange partners in circumstances of joint effort, soft outcomes, and/or ambiguous links between effort and performance (e.g., Tate and Ellram, 2009 ).

107. Middle-management commitment/support: The extent to which middle managers provide leadership, support, and commitment to outsourcing (e.g., Levina and Su, 2008 ).

108. * Mutual agreement: The degree of agreement about behaviors, goals, obligations, and policies among partners (e.g., Lioliou et al. , 2014 ).

109. Mutual dependency: The degree to which a client and a provider depend upon one another (e.g., Baraldi et al. , 2014 ).

110. Mutual understanding: The degree of understanding of behaviors, goals, and policies among partners (e.g., Sen and Shiel, 2006 ).

111. Opportunism: ‘Self-interest seeking with guile’ or ‘Making of false or empty, that is self-disbelieved, threats and promises’ (Williamson, 1976 , 1991 ; Tate and Ellram, 2009 ).

112. * Organizational boundaries: The demarcation between the organization and its environment; in outsourcing, the demarcation between the client and provider organizations (e.g., Baraldi et al. , 2014 ).

113. * Organizational learning: The degree to which organizations learn, often associated with the organization’s commitment to learn, open-mindedness and shared vision (e.g., Malik et al. , 2012 ).

114. * Outsourcing decision – backsourcing: A client organization’s decision to bring a previously outsourced service back in-house (e.g., Veltri et al. , 2008 ).

115. * Outsourcing decision – bundled services: A client organization’s decision to procure multiple services from the same provider, especially as it relates to the decision to deepen an existing provider relationship (e.g., Su and Levina, 2011 ).

116. * Outsourcing decision – captive: A client organization’s decision to operate a captive center in a nondomestic location (e.g., Massini et al , 2010 ).

117. * Outsourcing decision – commercial enterprise: A client organization’s decision to create a new commercial entity to provide outsourcing services to both internal and external customers (e.g., Freytag et al. , 2012 ).

118. Outsourcing decision – degree of outsourcing: The amount of outsourcing as indicated by percentage of budget outsourced and/or type and number of business services outsourced (e.g., Gilley et al. , 2004 ; Salimath et al. , 2008 ).

119. Outsourcing decision – degree of outsourcing – offshore: The amount of offshore outsourcing as indicated by percentage of budget outsourced and/or type and number of business services outsourced (e.g., Khan and Lacity, 2012 ).

120. * Outsourcing decision – domestic: A client organization’s decision to engage a domestic provider (e.g., Pearce, 2014 ).

121. * Outsourcing decision – impact sourcing: Hiring marginalized individuals (i.e., people who normally would have few opportunities for good employment) to provide IT, BP, or other digitally enabled services (e.g., Lacity et al. , 2014 ).

122. Outsourcing decision – make or buy: The fundamental make or buy decision (e.g., Williamson, 1991 ) in which a client organization decides to keep a business service in-house or decides to engage an outsourcing provider, measured as a binary variable (e.g., Lee and Kim, 2010 ).

123. Outsourcing decision – multisourcing: A client organization’s decision to engage multiple service providers (e.g., Sia et al. , 2008 ), primarily aiming for breath of providers (e.g., Su and Levina, 2011 ).

124. Outsourcing decision – offshore: A client organization’s decision to engage an offshore provider (e.g., Fifarek et al. , 2008 ; Lee and Kim, 2010 ).

125. * Outsourcing decision – offshore – county: A client’s decision to select this country as an offshore outsourcing destination; a country’s location attractiveness to outsourcing clients in other countries (e.g., Datta and Bhattacharya, 2012 ).

126. Outsourcing decision – provider selection: A client organization’s reason(s) for selecting a particular provider (e.g., Howells et al. , 2008 ). (Previously called ‘Outsourcing Decision – Supplier Selection’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

127. Outsourcing decision – renewal: The client’s decision to extend or renew an existing outsourcing contract (e.g., Bharadwaj et al. , 2010 ).

128. * Outsourcing decision – rural: A client organization’s decision to engage a rural-based provider (e.g., Lacity, Rottman, & Khan, 2010 ).

129. * Outsourcing decision – shared services: The client’s decision to share services across business divisions (e.g., Sako, 2010 ).

130. * Outsourcing decision – switch providers: A client organization’s decision to switch outsourcing providers (e.g., Freytag et al. , 2012 ).

131. * Outsourcing outcomes – backsourcing: The degree to which a client organization reports successful backsourcing of a business or IT service (e.g., Bhagwatwar et al. , 2011 ).

132. * Outsourcing outcomes – captive: The degree to which a client organization reports that the captive center is successful (e.g., Prikladnicki and Audy, 2012 ).

133. Outsourcing outcomes – organizational business performance – client: The degree to which a client organization achieved organizational-level business performance improvements, as a result of an outsourcing decision, such as stock price performance, revenue growth, return on assets, expenses, or profits (e.g., Reitzig and Wagner, 2010 ).

134. Outsourcing outcomes – organizational business performance – provider: The degree to which a provider organization achieved organizational-level business performance improvements, as a result of an outsourcing decision, such as stock price performance, return on assets, expenses, or profits (e.g., Rajeev and Vani, 2009 ).

135. Outsourcing outcomes – performance improvements: The degree to which a client organization reports business service improvements, as a consequence of outsourcing, such as reports of costs savings realized, better quality of services, better compliance, or tighter security (e.g., Mani et al. , 2010 ). (Previously called ‘Outsourcing Outcomes – Process Performance Improvements’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

136. Outsourcing outcomes – performance improvements – offshore: The degree to which a client organization reports business service improvements as a consequence of offshore outsourcing, such as reports of costs savings realized or better quality of services (e.g., Levina and Su, 2008 ). (Previously called ‘Outsourcing Outcomes – Process Performance Improvements – Offshore’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

137. Outsourcing outcomes – project performance: The degree to which a project is delivered on time, within budget, and meets requirements (e.g., Palvia et al. , 2010 ).

138. Outsourcing outcomes – project performance – offshore: The degree to which an offshored project is delivered on time, within budget, and meets requirements (e.g., Tate and Ellram, 2012 ).

139. Outsourcing outcomes – success – client: A client organization’s general perceptions of success and satisfaction with outsourcing (e.g., Sia et al. , 2008 ). (Previously called ‘Outsourcing Outcomes – Success’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

140. Outsourcing outcomes – success – offshore: A client organization’s general perceptions of success and satisfaction with offshore outsourcing (e.g., Vivek et al. , 2008 ).

141. * Outsourcing outcomes – success – provider: A provider organization’s general perceptions of success and satisfaction with outsourcing/offshoring (e.g., Palvia et al. , 2011 ).

142. * Outsourcing outcomes – success – shared services: A client organization’s general perceptions of success and satisfaction with shared services (e.g., Iveroth, 2010 ).

143. * Outsourcing outcomes – switch providers: A client organization’s report on the extent of success after switching service providers (e.g., Wiener and Saunders, 2014a ).

144. Partnership view: A client organization’s consideration of providers as trusted partners rather than as opportunistic vendors (e.g., Willcocks et al. , 2004 ; Sen and Shiel, 2006 ).

145. Political reasons/influences: A client stakeholder’s desire or need to use a sourcing decision to promote personal agendas (e.g., Maelah et al. , 2010 ).

146. * Practical intelligence: An individual’s ability to resolve project-related work problems that are unexpected, difficult, and cannot be resolved using established processes and frameworks (e.g., Langer et al. , 2014 ).

147. Prior client/provider working relationship: The situation in which the client and provider organizations have worked together in the past (e.g., Mani et al. , 2010 ). (Previously called ‘Prior Client/Supplier Working Relationship’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

148. Prior firm performance – client: Client firm performance usually measured as net profits, return on assets, expenses, earnings per share, number of patents, and/or stock price prior to an outsourcing decision. (e.g., Dunbar and Phillips, 2001 ; Gilley et al. , 2004 ).

149. Prior firm performance – provider: Provider firm performance usually measured as net profits, return on assets, expenses, earnings per share, and/or stock price prior to an outsourcing contract. (e.g., Gewald and Gellrich, 2007 ; Nadkarni and Herrmann, 2010 ). (Previously called ‘Prior Firm Performance – Supplier’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

150. Product quality: The quality of the end product delivered as part of an outsourcing/offshoring arrangement (e.g., Whitten and Leidner, 2006 ).

151. Project duration: The duration of the project in terms of time (e.g., Ramchandran and Gopal, 2010 ).

152. * Project management capability – client: The ability of retained teams within client organizations to internally manage and coordinate project activities related to planning, execution, and feedback for an outsourced project (e.g., Gopal et al. , 2011 ).

153. * Project management capability – provider: The ability of delivery teams within provider organizations to internally manage and coordinate project activities related to planning, execution, and feedback for an outsourced project (e.g., Gopal et al. , 2011 ).

154. Project scoping accuracy – provider: A provider firm capability to estimate the contract scope accurately (not underbid or overbid) (e.g., Koh et al. , 2004 ). (Previously called ‘Project Scoping Accuracy’ in Lacity, Rottman, & Khan, 2010 ).

155. * Project size: The size of a project, usually measured as number of people or effort (e.g., Langer et al. , 2014 ).

156. * Provider breadth of service: The degree to which providers offer a wide variety of services (e.g., Gao et al. , 2010 ).

157. Provider capabilities: A broad term that captures the overall level of a provider’s abilities (e.g., Su and Levina, 2011 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier’s Core Competences’ in Lacity, Rottman, & Khan, 2010 ).

158. Provider competition: The presence of multiple, reputable, and trustworthy service providers which can provide a range of choices for the clients (e.g., Levina and Su, 2008 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier Competition’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

159. Provider dependency: The degree to which a client depends on a provider (e.g., Borman, 2006 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier Dependency’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

160. * Provider employee – attitude: Attitude of employees toward their jobs or employers (e.g., Sarker et al. , 2010 ).

161. Provider employee performance: The client’s perception of the performance of individual provider employees (e.g., Daityari et al. , 2008 ; Lam and Chua, 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier Employee Performance’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

162. * Provider employee satisfaction: The degree to which provider employees are satisfied with their jobs and employers (e.g., Lacity et al. , 2014 ).

163. Provider employee turnover: The percentage of the workers that are replaced in a given time period, frequently measured as turnover intention (e.g., Budhwar et al. , 2006 ) (Previously called ‘Supplier Employee Turnover’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

164. * Provider employee work life conflict: ‘The inter-(between) role conflict where the demands created by the job interfere with performing family-related responsibilities’(Netemeyer et al. , 2004 , p. 50, as cited in Sarker et al. , 2010 ).

165. Provider firm age: The age of a provider firm in years (e.g., Lahiri and Kedia, 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier Age’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

166. Provider management capability: The extent to which a client organization is able to effectively manage outsourcing providers (e.g., Sanders et al. , 2007 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier Management Capability’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

167. * Provider power: The degree of power the provider has over the client (e.g., Barthélemy, 2011 ).

168. Provider reputation: The public’s perception of a provider’s capabilities based on past performance and financial status (e.g., Gewald and Gellrich, 2007 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier Reputation’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

169. Provider size: The size of a provider organization usually measured as total assets, sales, and/or number of employees (e.g., Nadkarni and Herrmann, 2010 ). (Previously called ‘Supplier Size’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

170. Public perceptions of outsourcing: The degree to which the public has a negative perception of outsourcing or offshoring (e.g., Sen and Shiel, 2006 ).

171. * Quality improvement: A client organization’s desire or need to improve the quality of the client’s business, processes, or capabilities (e.g., Gewald and Dibbern, 2009 ).

172. * Quality management capability – provider: The degree to which a provider has a total quality management philosophy and a focus on continuous improvement (e.g., Malik et al. , 2012 ).

173. R&D spend: The amount of money an organization spends on R&D (e.g., Calantone and Stanko, 2007 ; Grimpe and Kaiser, 2010 ).

174. Rapid delivery: A client organization’s desire or need to speed up service delivery (e.g., Bandyopadhyay and Hall, 2009 ; Lam and Chua, 2009 ).

175. Relational governance: The unwritten, worker-based mechanisms designed to influence interorganizational behavior (Macneil, 1980 ; Kim, 2008 ).

176. Relationship quality: The quality of the relationship between a client and provider (e.g., Sia et al , 2008 ; Saxena and Bharadwaj, 2009 ).

177. Relationship-specific investment: Specific investments made over time which discourage opportunism, reinforce signals of the client firms, and create extendedness of the relationships (e.g., Tate and Ellram, 2009 ).

178. Risk: The extent to which a transaction exposes a party (client or provider) to a chance of loss or damage (e.g., Wullenweber et al. , 2008 ; Mathew and Das Aundhe, 2011 ).

179. Risk management capability – client: A client organization’s practice of identifying, rating, and mitigating potential risks associated with outsourcing (e.g., Borman, 2006 ).

180. * Risk spread: The distribution of risk, typically by assigning work to multiple providers and/or locations (e.g., Su and Levina, 2011 ).

181. Scalability: The ability to scale volume of service up or down based on demand (e.g., Currie et al. , 2008 ; Redondo-Cano and Canet-Giner, 2010 ).

182. * Security breach: A significant incident that results in unauthorized access of data, applications, services, networks and/or devices, or loss or theft of IP (e.g., Gorla and Lau, 2010 ).

183. Security, privacy, and confidentiality capability – provider: The proven ability of a provider to protect client data through investments in technology, training, process controls, audits, and other management practices (e.g., Sen and Shiel, 2006 ). (Previously called ‘Security, Privacy, and Confidentiality Capability – Supplier’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

184. Senior leadership: The extent to which the senior executives of an organization are effective leaders (e.g., Lacity et al. , 2004 ).

185. Service complexity: The degree to which a service or project requires compound steps, the control of many variables, and/or where cause and effect are subtle and dynamic (e.g., Ventovuori and Lehtonen, 2006 ; Penfold, 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Process Complexity’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

186. Service integration: The degree to which clients and providers are able to integrate services (e.g., Sen and Shiel, 2006 ). (Previously called ‘Process Integration’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

187. Service interdependence: The level of integration and coupling among tasks; services that are highly integrated are tightly coupled and difficult to detach (e.g., Sanders et al. , 2007 ). (Previously called ‘Process Interdependence’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

188. Service quality: The quality of a service, frequently measured as a client’s perception of a satisfactory service performance by the provider (e.g., Lewin and Peeters, 2006 ).

189. Service standardization: The degree to which a service is standard (e.g., Tate and Ellram, 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Process Standardization’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

190. Slack resources: Resources and organization possesses in excess of what is required to maintain the organization (e.g., Koh et al , 2004 ; Hall and Liedtka, 2005 ). (Previously called ‘Financial Slack’ in Lacity, Rottman, & Khan, 2010 ).

191. Social capital – cognitive dimension: Social capital arising from the sharing representations, interpretations, and systems of meaning among parties (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998 ; Willcocks et al. , 2004 ).

192. Social capital – relational dimension: Social capital arising from personal relationships people have developed with each other through a history of interactions (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998 ; Willcocks et al. , 2004 ).

193. Social capital – structural dimension: Social capital arising from the patterns of linkages between people or units including network ties, network configuration, and network appropriability (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998 ; Willcocks et al. , 2004 ).

194. Social norms: An individual’s perceptions of the social pressures put on him or her to perform or not to perform the behavior in question. (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980 ; Raman et al. , 2007 ).

195. * Staff transfer: The practice of transferring staff from the client to provider organization (e.g., Miozzo and Grimshaw, 2011 ).

196. Stakeholder buy-in: Gaining commitment and support from all parties involved in sourcing-related decisions (e.g., Tate and Ellram, 2009 ).

197. Strategic intent: A client organization’s desire or need to source for strategic reasons such as developing new capabilities that can be leveraged in the marketplace (e.g., Sanders et al. , 2007 ).

198. Switching costs: The costs incurred when a client organization changes from one provider or marketplace to another (e.g., Wahrenburg et al. , 2006 ).

199. * Task programmability: The degree to which appropriate behavior by the agent (provider) can be precisely defined in advance (Eisenhardt, 1989 ) (e.g., Susarla et al. , 2010a , b ).

200. * Task variety: The degree to which a task requires various activities, skills, and talents (e.g., Sengupta and Gupta, 2011 ).

201. * Team dispersion: The degree to which a team is geographically dispersed, often measured as a percentage of teammates onshore/offshore (e.g., Langer et al. , 2014 ).

202. * Team size: The number of individuals assigned to a team (e.g., Gopal and Koka, 2012 ).

203. * Team turnover: The extent to which team members leave a team (e.g., Narayanan et al. , 2011 ).

204. Technical and methodological capability – client: A client organization’s level of maturity in terms of technical or process-related standards, and best practices (e.g., Bardhan et al. , 2007 ).

205. Technical and methodological capability – provider: A provider organization’s level of maturity in terms of technical or process-related and best practices (e.g., Sia et al. , 2008 ; Shah Bharadwaj and Saxena, 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Technical and Methodological Capability – Supplier’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

206. * Technology infrastructure quality – provider: The degree to which the technology infrastructure the provider uses to support service delivery is nimble, scalable, and state-of-the-art (e.g., Kannabiran and Sankaran, 2011 ).

207. * Technology integration imperative: A client organization’s need or desire to integrate technologies (e.g., Gefen et al. , 2011 ).

208. Technology upgrade: A client organization’s need or desire to improve or upgrade technology (e.g., Bhagwatwar et al. , 2011 ). (Previously called ‘Technical Reasons’ in Lacity, Rottman, & Khan, 2010 ).

209. Time zone differences: The difference in local times between two locations as measured in hours (e.g., Mehta et al. , 2006 ).

210. Top management commitment/support: The extent to which senior executives provide leadership, support, and commitment to outsourcing (e.g., Tate and Ellram, 2009 ).

211. Training: The nature or extent of provider employee training by either the client or provider organization (e.g., Raman et al. , 2007 ; Malik, 2009 ).

212. Transaction costs: The effort, time, and costs incurred in searching, creating, negotiating, monitoring, and administrating a service contract between buyers and providers (Williamson, 1991 ; Levina and Su, 2008 ).

213. Transaction frequency: The number of times a client organization initiates a transaction typically categorized as either occasional or frequent (e.g., Wahrenburg et al. , 2006 ).

214. Transaction size: The size of a transaction often measured in terms of dollar value or effort (e.g., Luo et al. , 2010 ).

215. Transaction type: The type of work, usually operationalized as a categorical variable, such as delineating among transactions involving development, maintenance, and reengineering work (e.g., Gopal and Koka, 2010 ) or between ITO and BPO (e.g., Lee and Kim, 2010 ).

216. Transition management capability – client: The extent to which a client organization effectively transitions services to or from outsourcing providers or integrates client services with provider services (e.g., Luo et al. , 2010 ).

217. Transition management capability – provider: The extent to which a provider organization effectively transitions services from a client organization to the provider or integrates client services with provider services (e.g., Saxena and Bharadwaj, 2009 ). (Previously called ‘Transition Management Capability – Supplier’ in Lacity et al. , 2011 .)

218. Trust: The confidence in the other party’s benevolence (e.g., Gainey and Klaas, 2003 ).

219. Uncertainty: The degree of unpredictability or volatility of future states as it relates to the definition of requirements, emerging technologies, and/or environmental factors (Williamson, 1991 ; Mani et al. , 2010 ).

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Lacity, M.C., Khan, S.A., Yan, A. (2017). Review of the Empirical Business Services Sourcing Literature: An Update and Future Directions. In: Willcocks, L., Lacity, M., Sauer, C. (eds) Outsourcing and Offshoring Business Services. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52651-5_14

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Research Article

Challenges and practices identification in complex outsourcing relationships: A systematic literature review

Roles Formal analysis, Methodology

Affiliations Department of Computer Science and IT, Software-Engineering-Research-Group (SERG-UOM), University of Malakand, Chakdara, Pakistan, Department of Computer Science, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sheringal, Dir(U), Pakistan

Roles Methodology, Project administration

Affiliation Department of Computer Science and IT, Software-Engineering-Research-Group (SERG-UOM), University of Malakand, Chakdara, Pakistan

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Accounting and Information Systems, College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

Roles Conceptualization, Project administration, Resources

• Ghulam Murtaza Khan, 
• Siffat Ullah Khan, 
• Habib Ullah Khan, 
• Muhammad Ilyas

• Published: January 31, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Complex IT outsourcing relationships aptitude several benefits such as increased cost likelihood and lowered costs, higher scalability and flexibility upon demand. However, by virtue of its complexity, the complex outsourcing typically necessitates the interactions among various stakeholders from diverse regions and cultures, making it significantly more challenging to manage than traditional outsourcing. Furthermore, when compared to other types of outsourcing, complex outsourcing is extremely difficult because it necessitates a variety of control and coordination mechanisms for project management, which proportionally increases the risk of project failure. In order to overcome the failure of projects in complex outsourcing relationships, there is a need of robust systematic research to identify the key challenges and practices in this area. Therefore, this research implements systematic literature review as a research method and works as a pioneer attempt to accomplish the aforementioned objectives. Upon furnishing the SLR results, the authors identified 11 major challenges with 67 practices in hand from a total of 85 papers. Based on these findings, the authors intend to construct a comprehensive framework in the future by incorporating robust methodologies such as AHP and fuzzy logic, among others.

Citation: Khan GM, Khan SU, Khan HU, Ilyas M (2022) Challenges and practices identification in complex outsourcing relationships: A systematic literature review. PLoS ONE 17(1): e0262710. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710

Editor: Anandakumar Haldorai, Sri Eshwar College of Engineering, INDIA

Received: September 4, 2021; Accepted: January 1, 2022; Published: January 31, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Khan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper.

Funding: This publication was supported by Qatar National Library, Doha, Qatar and Qatar University Internal Grant No. IRCC- 2021-010. The findings achieved herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Outsourcing is the transfer of the continuous management responsibility of a client party or service user to a third party, referred to as a vendor or provider, to perform an IT service under a contract of service level agreement [ 1 ]. Outsourcing has since become a well-established academic subject because of its rapidly developing practice. Outsourcing determinations, outsourcing methods, challenges identified in outsourcing etc. are some of the hot topics in the literature [ 2 ].

Some of the advantages of outsourcing include ensuring maximum profit, lower costs, increased productivity, flexibility in meeting service needs, higher quality, redirecting company resources to core activities, more customer satisfaction, continuity and risk management, faster time to market, access to skilled resources, flexibility to focus on key areas, and faster and better services [ 3 , 4 ].

Proponents of IT outsourcing have underlined the importance of managing outsourced relationships. "A long-term commitment, shared risk and benefits, a sense of reciprocal cooperation, and other features congruent with concepts and theories of participatory decision making" is what a relationship is characterised as. While IT outsourcing interactions have gotten some attention in the literature, just a few academics have looked at the client-supplier IT outsourcing relationship [ 5 ].

Collaboration across corporate boundaries is a necessary component of today’s company. This type of client-vendor relationship frequently goes beyond the typical contractual restrictions agreed upon at the start of collaboration. The risks and advantages of joint labours, as well as investments and work load, are evenly distributed among the collaborative partners. Inter- and intra-organizational collaboration helps businesses gain a competitive advantage. Bidirectional trust, reciprocal dependency, and a win-win mindset between partners are the foundations of long-term working relationships. Collaboration is typically developed by businesses to reduce the costs of collecting the necessary information/understanding, capabilities, and competencies for well-organized professional operations [ 6 ].

All IT outsourcing contracts include components of collaboration, virtual cooperation, and the demands of increasingly sophisticated systems. But one of the most essential variables in deciding the success or failure of virtual collaboration is trust. Good relationships are tactical assets that necessitate the ongoing management effort and focus [ 7 ].

An outsourcing project’s success or failure is determined by a number of elements, including project size, duration, and, most importantly, contract design and management among different stakeholders. Therefore, additional research is required to understand how various parts of outsourcing interact and what the further consequences of the dynamics of these factors are on various organizational outcomes [ 8 ].

Outsourcing has progressed through several stages of client-vendor relationships. Such phases of the relationship are briefly illustrated via the framework in [ 9 ] as

1. Dyadic outsourcing relationship

A client in a dyadic relationship relies on only one vendor to meet all of their demands, which might range from simple to complex. The majority of research in the literature considers such relationship as one-to-one, implying that one client seeks services independently of others, and suppliers do the same.

2. Multi-vendor relationship

In a one-to-many relationship, a client seeks out more than one vendor to supply their services in order to meet the client’s needs or achieve its goals, and information regarding the division of labor is shared and discussed with all parties to the agreement.

3. Co-sourcing relationship

A many-to-one or co-sourcing relationship is described as a collaboration between multiple clients for the delivery of a service through a single vendor contract.

4. Complex outsourcing relationship

The phrase complex relationship or complex outsourcing relationship (COR), which is the subject of this study, refers to a relationship between several clients and multiple vendors (i.e., many-to-many), in which multiple clients rely on multiple vendors to meet their needs under the same contract.

Multiple vendor organizations may work for multiple client organizations through the same contractual agreement or connection in a "complex outsourcing relationship (COR). It is worth noting that this study’s focus is on such a phase or relationship, which is exceptionally difficult to manage owing to the complexity of the situation and the various types of stakeholders involved. The aforementioned phases and types of outsourcing relationships are shown in ( Fig 1 ).

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• TIFF original image

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.g001

Good relationships and carefully drafted contracts have a significant impact on outsourcing. However, there is a lack of comprehensive guidance in this area, specifically in the context of complex outsourcing relationships, due to the dearth of studies described in the literature [ 10 ]. Outsourcing has become more complex and diversified as a result of the expansion of numerous actors connected via a contract, such as a client and one or more vendors, each with their own unique qualities [ 11 ]. Furthermore, because of its complexity, complex outsourcing typically necessitates interactions among various stakeholders from diverse regions and cultures, making it significantly more challenging to manage than traditional outsourcing. Moreover, complex outsourcing when compared to other types of outsourcing is extremely difficult because it necessitates a variety of control and coordination mechanisms for project management, which proportionally increases the risk of project failure [ 12 ].

Therefore, in light of these points, this study aims to identify the challenges and practices in the context of complex outsourcing relationships.

Based on this hypothesis, the authors of this study formulated the following research question:

• RQ. 1: What are the key challenges, as identified in the literature, faced by multiple stakeholders (clients and vendors) in the context of complex outsourcing relationships?
• RQ. 2: What are the practices/solutions, as identified in the literature, faced by multiple stakeholders (clients and vendors) in the context of complex outsourcing relationships?

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Background information is provided in Section II. Section III provides a detailed description of the research methodology. The conclusions of this investigation are presented in section IV. The study’s shortcomings are discussed in Section V, and conclusions and future work are discussed in Section VI. The remaining sections provide further information.

In support of a thorough software, the author proposed [ 13 ] a robust architecture for security and compliance challenges. Furthermore, by establishing software requirements based on a study of work patterns of service providers acting in complex IT outsourcing agreements and proposing a software architecture that meets these requirements, this study contributes to filling the gap in software support.

In COR setups, there are a number of solutions [ 12 ] that focus on IT infrastructure compliance, but they are typically ineffective and inefficient and do not work well in general. I am not aware of any solutions that support all of the services we use, necessitating the use of multiple solutions.

Complex IS outsourcing initiatives have distinct tasks and stakeholder connections compared to standard IS outsourcing projects [ 14 ].

Because of the growing worldwide distribution of IT services, which involves complex interorganizational connections and the dispersion of decision rights and responsibilities across numerous organizations, a thorough understanding of governance procedures is required [ 15 ].

The authors build and offer a theoretical framework for explaining various types of outsourcing partnerships, as well as an analysis of why client organizations seeking IT services might choose more collaborative or complicated outsourcing arrangements than dyadic interactions. Moreover, the authors believe that the COR relationships in the future will be more in use [ 9 ].

The authors suggested a methodology and decision-making approach [ 16 ] for examining incentive schemes and creating outsourcing contracts that benefit both the outsourcer and vendor in COR.

Complex outsourcing contracts [ 17 ] are difficult to manage and of themselves, but when time zone differences, language barriers, significant distance, rare face-to-face meetings, and diversity–all of which are common offshore deal companions–the task becomes exponentially more difficult.

Organizations that deal with complex outsourcing arrangements on a regular basis have intelligently implemented the lifecycle model explained in this article [ 18 ].

Many companies struggle to properly manage one or more complex outsourcing agreements, generate value, and mitigate risk [ 19 ].

This research [ 20 ] examines the significance of trust in complex contracts and relationships frameworks that underpin global outsourcing, as well as the difficult conflict-resolution procedures that can be employed to restore trust.

In [ 21 ], the authors want to see what an Indian supplier considers to be significant in order to manage some big and complex outsourcing partnerships, and specifically, how reciprocally profitable and long-term partnerships are developed and maintained with European customers.

By offering a descriptive framework incorporating essential governance variables, this article [ 22 ] seeks to deliver a good understanding for managing complex-type IT-outsourcing agreements. The findings of the analysis, as well as the framework itself, demonstrate the numerous complex difficulties that arise when managing sophisticated IT outsourcing partnerships.

Research methodology

We conducted a systematic literature review to collect relevant data from the literature, which is a more complete and rigorous method than the traditional literature review (OLR). The SLR was carried out in three stages: planning, execution, and reporting.

Search strategy

To conduct an SLR, we tracked Kitchenham’s guidelines [ 23 ] and Mendes et al. [ 24 ]. In addition, depending on the study objectives, we used the population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes (PICO) criteria to select keywords and build search strings.

Population: Clients and Vendors in Complex Outsourcing Relationships

Intervention: Challenges, Practices

Comparison: For the sake of this investigation, no comparisons are made.

Relevance Outcomes: To Assist Clients and Vendors in Complex Outsourcing Relationships

Furthermore, to build the search strings, we employed Boolean connectors AND and OR to connect the features of PICO.

Search strings

To avoid a search break by different database constraints, we developed three different strings.

String 1: ((“Complex outsourcing” OR “Complex software outsourcing” OR “Complex Information Systems outsourcing” OR “complex IT outsourcing” OR “complex outsourcing relationship”) AND (Challenges OR issues OR barriers OR risks OR Practices OR solutions).

String 2: ((“Complex outsourcing relationship” OR “Complex software outsourcing relationship” OR “Complex Information Systems outsourcing relationship” OR “complex IT outsourcing relationship” OR “Complex outsourcing”) AND

(Challenges OR barriers OR issues OR risks OR Practices OR solutions) AND

(“Relationship management in complex outsourcing” OR “Co-ordination in complex outsourcing” OR “Communication in complex outsourcing” OR “Contract management in complex outsourcing” OR “Task allocation in complex outsourcing” OR “Trust building in Complex outsourcing”))

String 3: (("Complex software outsourcing" OR "Complex IS/IT outsourcing" OR "complex outsourcing") AND ("Challenges" OR "issues" OR "barriers" OR "risks" OR "Practices" OR "solutions" solutions))

Literature resources

Using our search strings, we applied our search for famous libraries, such as IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar, ACM, Wiley Online Library, SpringerLink, and ScienceDirect. We also used the snowballing method to further support our research questions and not to miss any important data. It is worth noting that we started the search on 21 th February, 2021, and systematically completed it on 8 th April, 2021.

Criteria for study selection

The strings and authors’ recommendations were backed up by the researchers. Initially, we added a string to the library for metadata. The same procedure was followed to avoid interference with the title, abstract, or keyword restrictions. Each paper was properly documented by the first author, who kept a complete record. Based on this phase, other authors assessed the papers and assigned pertinent information for each paper, as well as its title and abstract.

We established the following inclusion and exclusion criteria based on the aforementioned principles for SLR.

Inclusion criteria.

Such criteria specify which portions of the literature will be considered for inclusion in the selection. Based on such criteria, we have only analyzed items that are relevant to complex outsourcing. The inclusion criteria were as follows:

• Articles in full text of the English language.
• Sources only relevant to COR.
• Studies that describe the COR challenges.
• Studies that describe the COR practices.
• Studies published in journals and conferences.
• White papers and standardized reports from trustworthy organizations.

Exclusion criteria.

Such criteria specify which pieces of literature are not included for consideration. The exclusion criteria were as follows:

• Studies, not relevant to our research questions.
• Studies of other than English language.
• Incomplete Studies.
• Duplicate studies
• Thesis or magazine and/or web articles.

The search outcomes are presented in Table 1 . We retrieved 281 publications from a total of 1372 using the inclusion criteria. Using the exclusion criteria, we narrowed it to 85 papers. During data extraction, the principal author finished each step, which was then examined by other authors.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t001

The primary goal of quality assessment was to identify and eliminate lower-quality studies and to determine the validity of a study’s conclusions.

Criteria for quality assessment

We created the assessment criteria using the guidelines and updates for the SLR from previous studies. In this way, we formulated the questions given in Table 2 prior to the implementation of such criteria. Furthermore, we employed a three-tiered scale to rate each question in the reviewed papers. Yes, no, or partial. We assigned values of 1 to Yes, 0.5, partly, and 0 to No in order to produce quantitative results.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t002

Furthermore, the work had to be graded on an average of 0.5. The principal author was in charge of applying the assessment parameter for quality to the studies, whereas the remaining authors were responsible for confirming the same assessments on a minority group of previously nominated studies. A few papers were omitted from the study using the same mechanism. However, as seen in Table 1 , after going through the entire process, the final number of studies was 85. Any discrepancies were resolved through additional discussion. Any discrepancies were resolved through additional discussion.

Data extraction

Counting the challenges and their practices is a difficult task because the majority of the challenges and practices from such areas are cascading in nature. Nonetheless, we discovered 11 primary challenges with 67 practices from a total of 85 papers. The identified challenges and their practices are presented in the next section via Tables 3 – 13 , respectively. Furthermore, the papers extracted via the SLR are presented in ( S1 Appendix ) with the respective IDs and Title.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t003

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t004

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t005

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t006

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t007

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t008

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t009

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t010

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t011

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t012

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t013

Results and discussion

The goal of this research is to uncover the key issues and practices experienced by multiple stakeholders (such as clients and vendors) when dealing with COR.

The following are the challenges that we have identified and analyzed after thorough conduction of the SLR in such areas.

Challenges in COR

Table 3 presents the 11 key challenges with the given frequencies as follows:

• 1. Control and Coordination Challenges :

‘Control and Coordination’ are one amongst the major challenge in COR. Control refers to a company’s capability to command or manage scattered events so that they meet the company’s goals. The ability of a company to coordinate these disparate activities is referred to as coordination [ 25 ].

• 2. Decision Problems :

Information system outsourcing decisions [ 26 ] are difficult to make because they entail a number of elements, including (a) establishing and managing a long-term partnership with an independent agent, and (b) revealing the critical organizational assets for controlling outside agents. When the same matter is evaluated from the perspective of COR, it becomes more challenging.

• 3. High Cost :

The overall cost [ 27 ], for example, the hidden cost, estimated cost, control cost, coordination cost, etc., for outsourcing is high in the case of COR.

• 4. Security and Compliance Challenges :

Security and Compliance is a composite challenge, including six sub-challenges (see Table 3 above) in the context of COR. It is worth noting that this particular challenge focused on the cloud version of COR.

• 5. Risky Contracts :

Managing risk is also a major issue, specifically in the context of COR, where multiple stakeholders from different cultures and zones are involved. Furthermore, large or complex IT contracts, which are nearly always incomplete, enhance the chance of risk in a variety of ways.

• 6. Poor Human Resource Management (HRM) :

People and staff management becomes extremely difficult in the situation of COR, where multiple personnel from various cultural and zone variances are coordinated, particularly in a security-related system.

• 7. IT Transitions Difficulties :

One reason for this failure is the complication of information system outsourcing transitions. In the case of COR, where several clients and vendors are involved, the transaction will undoubtedly grow more complicated.

• 8. Poor Contract Management :

Contract management, also known as the hard side, is one of the biggest issues and is discussed in more detail in the literature. For pre-contract, the supplier’s standard type contracts should not be utilized, even as a starting point, for complex outsourcing arrangements involving large sums of money, because they are always structured in favor of the outsourced vendor [ 28 ].

• 9. Different Cultural Issues :

Because of the increased level of uncertainty associated with the crossing of organisational, geographical and cultural boundaries, complex IS outsourcing strategies even become more complex [ 29 ].

• 10. General Management Complexities :

With several development centres in different time zones, geographies, and cultures, managing the complex outsourcing relationships is intrinsically tough. Furthermore, management becomes much more difficult when IT is mostly outsourced to one or more IT services providers i.e. COR.

• 11. Modern Technological Challenges :

Technology Challenges, Strategic Decision Challenges, Vendor Management Challenges, and Vendor Selection Challenges are the four key kinds of challenges often faced where more than one stackholders are involved [ 30 ].

Analysis of these challenges based on research methodology used

To analyze and well furnish the outcomes of the SLR, we further categorized the results of the identified challenges on 8 different commonly used research methodologies. The methodologies are Experimentation/Testing, Case Study/Case Studies, Empirical Survey, Interviews, Ordinary Literature Review (OLR), Systematic Literature Review (SLR), Others (i.e. Main Path Analysis and Content Analysis, Mixed Method (.i.e more than one method), as shown in ( Fig 2 ). During the analysis, we concluded that Experimentation/Testing methodology has been used more in the literature in this domain. Because in these studies, models or methods were used to check or test the challenges quantitavely, for example, measuring the cost or taking decisions. Similarly, the second mostly used methodologies are Case Study/Case Studies or Empirical Survey. Once again the reason behind this analysis was to collect empirically sound data in the real context of a case. The Mixed Methodology shows progressive results in this particular area and that’s why it is reported at number three position in the list etc.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.g002

Analysis of these challenges based on publication period

Although, we did not put any date boundaries of data during the accomplishment of an SLR, but during the analysis, we pointed out a major contribution shift from a theoretical to practical implementation by the organizations in COR context. Therefore, based on this knowledge, we divided the publication era into two periods such as papers published before 2014 and papers published in 2014 and onwards, as shown in ( Fig 3 ). We can further conclude from the analysis of ( Fig 3 ) that COR is one of the most prominent research areas to date. Because sufficient number of studies are published in the second period (i.e., in 2014 and onwards).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.g003

Analysis of these challenges based on publication venue

( Fig 4 ) gives an analysis based on publication channel. We divided the publication channels into three categories, such as papers published in Conference/Proceeding, Journal Papers, Technical Reports/Research Working Papers. From the analysis of ( Fig 4 ), it is clearly visible that the majority of papers were published in Journals. This analysis once again is an evidence that COR is always a strong research area in the literature.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.g004

Practices for identified challenges

However, it was quite difficult to accurately account for the concerned practices for the stated challenges due to the cascading nature of data. Nonetheless, we organized them to the best of our efforts and identified 67 practices for the the aforementioned challenges. Moreover, due to the time and space constraints, we present these practices for the concerned challenges in tabular form, as depicted in Tables 4 to 14 below.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.t014

Limitations and threats to validity

We did our best to conduct a systematic literature review as a study approach, including ensuring the pertinency of appropriate string selection and a sufficient sample size, but it is still conceivable that we have overlooked some crucial information. In order to reduce the danger of construct validity in terms of the usage of digital libraries, we narrowed our focus to pertinent and famous computing libraries, but again it was confined to the very few libraries. We have listed the publications in ( S1 Appendix ) for interested visitors to minimize the danger of the study’s internal validity. To prevent such dangers, each component of our SLR was confirmed via a rigorous approach and intermittent review processes by the participating researchers. The identification method has been used in the literature for similar investigations multiple times. It should be noted that the majority of the studies we gathered were from the COR database. However, only a few of them, or portions of them, do not properly identify the COR data, giving the context a hazy picture. Furthermore, only papers written in English were chosen.

The benefits of a complex IT outsourcing arrangement include enhanced cost certainty and lower expenses, increased scalability, and flexibility on demand. Complex outsourcing, on the other hand, demands interactions between many stakeholders from various areas and cultures, making it substantially more difficult to manage than regular outsourcing. Complex outsourcing is also more challenging than other forms of outsourcing since it needs a variety of control and coordination mechanisms for project management, which increases the chance of project failure accordingly. In this regard, a more systematic research is needed to uncover the important difficulties and techniques in this area in order to overcome project failure in complex outsourcing relationships. As a result, this study uses systematic literature review as a research method and serves as a pioneering effort to achieve the aforementioned goals. The authors highlighted 11 key issues after receiving the SLR data, with 67 practises in hand from a total of 85 publications. The authors want to build a comprehensive framework based on their findings in the future by using some strong approaches like as AHP and fuzzy logic, etc.

Supporting information

S1 appendix..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.s001

S1 File. Authors’ biography.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262710.s002

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to other members of the Software Engineering Research Group (SERG) for their valuable feedback and support during the research process.

• View Article
• Google Scholar
• 23. EBSE Technical Report. Guidelines for performing Systematic Literature Reviews in Software Engineering. Software Engineering Group School of Computer Science and Mathematics Keele University Keele, Staffs ST5 5BG, UK and Department of Computer Science University of Durham Durham.2007. https://www.elsevier.com/__data/promis_misc/525444systematicreviewsguide.pdf .
• 30. Sounderpandian J, Balakrishnan J, Cheng CH, Wong WC . 3(4): 428–450. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJPM.2010.035471

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Challenges and practices identification in complex outsourcing relationships: A systematic literature review

Ghulam Murtaza Khan

1 Department of Computer Science and IT, Software-Engineering-Research-Group (SERG-UOM), University of Malakand, Chakdara, Pakistan

2 Department of Computer Science, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Sheringal, Dir(U), Pakistan

Siffat Ullah Khan

Habib ullah khan.

3 Department of Accounting and Information Systems, College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

Muhammad Ilyas

Associated data.

All relevant data are within the paper.

Complex IT outsourcing relationships aptitude several benefits such as increased cost likelihood and lowered costs, higher scalability and flexibility upon demand. However, by virtue of its complexity, the complex outsourcing typically necessitates the interactions among various stakeholders from diverse regions and cultures, making it significantly more challenging to manage than traditional outsourcing. Furthermore, when compared to other types of outsourcing, complex outsourcing is extremely difficult because it necessitates a variety of control and coordination mechanisms for project management, which proportionally increases the risk of project failure. In order to overcome the failure of projects in complex outsourcing relationships, there is a need of robust systematic research to identify the key challenges and practices in this area. Therefore, this research implements systematic literature review as a research method and works as a pioneer attempt to accomplish the aforementioned objectives. Upon furnishing the SLR results, the authors identified 11 major challenges with 67 practices in hand from a total of 85 papers. Based on these findings, the authors intend to construct a comprehensive framework in the future by incorporating robust methodologies such as AHP and fuzzy logic, among others.

Introduction

Outsourcing is the transfer of the continuous management responsibility of a client party or service user to a third party, referred to as a vendor or provider, to perform an IT service under a contract of service level agreement [ 1 ]. Outsourcing has since become a well-established academic subject because of its rapidly developing practice. Outsourcing determinations, outsourcing methods, challenges identified in outsourcing etc. are some of the hot topics in the literature [ 2 ].

Some of the advantages of outsourcing include ensuring maximum profit, lower costs, increased productivity, flexibility in meeting service needs, higher quality, redirecting company resources to core activities, more customer satisfaction, continuity and risk management, faster time to market, access to skilled resources, flexibility to focus on key areas, and faster and better services [ 3 , 4 ].

Proponents of IT outsourcing have underlined the importance of managing outsourced relationships. "A long-term commitment, shared risk and benefits, a sense of reciprocal cooperation, and other features congruent with concepts and theories of participatory decision making" is what a relationship is characterised as. While IT outsourcing interactions have gotten some attention in the literature, just a few academics have looked at the client-supplier IT outsourcing relationship [ 5 ].

Collaboration across corporate boundaries is a necessary component of today’s company. This type of client-vendor relationship frequently goes beyond the typical contractual restrictions agreed upon at the start of collaboration. The risks and advantages of joint labours, as well as investments and work load, are evenly distributed among the collaborative partners. Inter- and intra-organizational collaboration helps businesses gain a competitive advantage. Bidirectional trust, reciprocal dependency, and a win-win mindset between partners are the foundations of long-term working relationships. Collaboration is typically developed by businesses to reduce the costs of collecting the necessary information/understanding, capabilities, and competencies for well-organized professional operations [ 6 ].

All IT outsourcing contracts include components of collaboration, virtual cooperation, and the demands of increasingly sophisticated systems. But one of the most essential variables in deciding the success or failure of virtual collaboration is trust. Good relationships are tactical assets that necessitate the ongoing management effort and focus [ 7 ].

An outsourcing project’s success or failure is determined by a number of elements, including project size, duration, and, most importantly, contract design and management among different stakeholders. Therefore, additional research is required to understand how various parts of outsourcing interact and what the further consequences of the dynamics of these factors are on various organizational outcomes [ 8 ].

Outsourcing has progressed through several stages of client-vendor relationships. Such phases of the relationship are briefly illustrated via the framework in [ 9 ] as

1. Dyadic outsourcing relationship

A client in a dyadic relationship relies on only one vendor to meet all of their demands, which might range from simple to complex. The majority of research in the literature considers such relationship as one-to-one, implying that one client seeks services independently of others, and suppliers do the same.

2. Multi-vendor relationship

In a one-to-many relationship, a client seeks out more than one vendor to supply their services in order to meet the client’s needs or achieve its goals, and information regarding the division of labor is shared and discussed with all parties to the agreement.

3. Co-sourcing relationship

A many-to-one or co-sourcing relationship is described as a collaboration between multiple clients for the delivery of a service through a single vendor contract.

4. Complex outsourcing relationship

The phrase complex relationship or complex outsourcing relationship (COR), which is the subject of this study, refers to a relationship between several clients and multiple vendors (i.e., many-to-many), in which multiple clients rely on multiple vendors to meet their needs under the same contract.

Multiple vendor organizations may work for multiple client organizations through the same contractual agreement or connection in a "complex outsourcing relationship (COR). It is worth noting that this study’s focus is on such a phase or relationship, which is exceptionally difficult to manage owing to the complexity of the situation and the various types of stakeholders involved. The aforementioned phases and types of outsourcing relationships are shown in ( Fig 1 ).

Good relationships and carefully drafted contracts have a significant impact on outsourcing. However, there is a lack of comprehensive guidance in this area, specifically in the context of complex outsourcing relationships, due to the dearth of studies described in the literature [ 10 ]. Outsourcing has become more complex and diversified as a result of the expansion of numerous actors connected via a contract, such as a client and one or more vendors, each with their own unique qualities [ 11 ]. Furthermore, because of its complexity, complex outsourcing typically necessitates interactions among various stakeholders from diverse regions and cultures, making it significantly more challenging to manage than traditional outsourcing. Moreover, complex outsourcing when compared to other types of outsourcing is extremely difficult because it necessitates a variety of control and coordination mechanisms for project management, which proportionally increases the risk of project failure [ 12 ].

Therefore, in light of these points, this study aims to identify the challenges and practices in the context of complex outsourcing relationships.

Based on this hypothesis, the authors of this study formulated the following research question:

• RQ. 1: What are the key challenges, as identified in the literature, faced by multiple stakeholders (clients and vendors) in the context of complex outsourcing relationships?
• RQ. 2: What are the practices/solutions, as identified in the literature, faced by multiple stakeholders (clients and vendors) in the context of complex outsourcing relationships?

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Background information is provided in Section II. Section III provides a detailed description of the research methodology. The conclusions of this investigation are presented in section IV. The study’s shortcomings are discussed in Section V, and conclusions and future work are discussed in Section VI. The remaining sections provide further information.

In support of a thorough software, the author proposed [ 13 ] a robust architecture for security and compliance challenges. Furthermore, by establishing software requirements based on a study of work patterns of service providers acting in complex IT outsourcing agreements and proposing a software architecture that meets these requirements, this study contributes to filling the gap in software support.

In COR setups, there are a number of solutions [ 12 ] that focus on IT infrastructure compliance, but they are typically ineffective and inefficient and do not work well in general. I am not aware of any solutions that support all of the services we use, necessitating the use of multiple solutions.

Complex IS outsourcing initiatives have distinct tasks and stakeholder connections compared to standard IS outsourcing projects [ 14 ].

Because of the growing worldwide distribution of IT services, which involves complex interorganizational connections and the dispersion of decision rights and responsibilities across numerous organizations, a thorough understanding of governance procedures is required [ 15 ].

The authors build and offer a theoretical framework for explaining various types of outsourcing partnerships, as well as an analysis of why client organizations seeking IT services might choose more collaborative or complicated outsourcing arrangements than dyadic interactions. Moreover, the authors believe that the COR relationships in the future will be more in use [ 9 ].

The authors suggested a methodology and decision-making approach [ 16 ] for examining incentive schemes and creating outsourcing contracts that benefit both the outsourcer and vendor in COR.

Complex outsourcing contracts [ 17 ] are difficult to manage and of themselves, but when time zone differences, language barriers, significant distance, rare face-to-face meetings, and diversity–all of which are common offshore deal companions–the task becomes exponentially more difficult.

Organizations that deal with complex outsourcing arrangements on a regular basis have intelligently implemented the lifecycle model explained in this article [ 18 ].

Many companies struggle to properly manage one or more complex outsourcing agreements, generate value, and mitigate risk [ 19 ].

This research [ 20 ] examines the significance of trust in complex contracts and relationships frameworks that underpin global outsourcing, as well as the difficult conflict-resolution procedures that can be employed to restore trust.

In [ 21 ], the authors want to see what an Indian supplier considers to be significant in order to manage some big and complex outsourcing partnerships, and specifically, how reciprocally profitable and long-term partnerships are developed and maintained with European customers.

By offering a descriptive framework incorporating essential governance variables, this article [ 22 ] seeks to deliver a good understanding for managing complex-type IT-outsourcing agreements. The findings of the analysis, as well as the framework itself, demonstrate the numerous complex difficulties that arise when managing sophisticated IT outsourcing partnerships.

Research methodology

We conducted a systematic literature review to collect relevant data from the literature, which is a more complete and rigorous method than the traditional literature review (OLR). The SLR was carried out in three stages: planning, execution, and reporting.

Search strategy

To conduct an SLR, we tracked Kitchenham’s guidelines [ 23 ] and Mendes et al. [ 24 ]. In addition, depending on the study objectives, we used the population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes (PICO) criteria to select keywords and build search strings.

Population: Clients and Vendors in Complex Outsourcing Relationships

Intervention: Challenges, Practices

Comparison: For the sake of this investigation, no comparisons are made.

Relevance Outcomes: To Assist Clients and Vendors in Complex Outsourcing Relationships

Furthermore, to build the search strings, we employed Boolean connectors AND and OR to connect the features of PICO.

Search strings

To avoid a search break by different database constraints, we developed three different strings.

String 1: ((“Complex outsourcing” OR “Complex software outsourcing” OR “Complex Information Systems outsourcing” OR “complex IT outsourcing” OR “complex outsourcing relationship”) AND (Challenges OR issues OR barriers OR risks OR Practices OR solutions).

String 2: ((“Complex outsourcing relationship” OR “Complex software outsourcing relationship” OR “Complex Information Systems outsourcing relationship” OR “complex IT outsourcing relationship” OR “Complex outsourcing”) AND

(Challenges OR barriers OR issues OR risks OR Practices OR solutions) AND

(“Relationship management in complex outsourcing” OR “Co-ordination in complex outsourcing” OR “Communication in complex outsourcing” OR “Contract management in complex outsourcing” OR “Task allocation in complex outsourcing” OR “Trust building in Complex outsourcing”))

String 3: (("Complex software outsourcing" OR "Complex IS/IT outsourcing" OR "complex outsourcing") AND ("Challenges" OR "issues" OR "barriers" OR "risks" OR "Practices" OR "solutions" solutions))

Literature resources

Using our search strings, we applied our search for famous libraries, such as IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar, ACM, Wiley Online Library, SpringerLink, and ScienceDirect. We also used the snowballing method to further support our research questions and not to miss any important data. It is worth noting that we started the search on 21 th February, 2021, and systematically completed it on 8 th April, 2021.

Criteria for study selection

The strings and authors’ recommendations were backed up by the researchers. Initially, we added a string to the library for metadata. The same procedure was followed to avoid interference with the title, abstract, or keyword restrictions. Each paper was properly documented by the first author, who kept a complete record. Based on this phase, other authors assessed the papers and assigned pertinent information for each paper, as well as its title and abstract.

We established the following inclusion and exclusion criteria based on the aforementioned principles for SLR.

Inclusion criteria

Such criteria specify which portions of the literature will be considered for inclusion in the selection. Based on such criteria, we have only analyzed items that are relevant to complex outsourcing. The inclusion criteria were as follows:

• Articles in full text of the English language.
• Sources only relevant to COR.
• Studies that describe the COR challenges.
• Studies that describe the COR practices.
• Studies published in journals and conferences.
• White papers and standardized reports from trustworthy organizations.

Exclusion criteria

Such criteria specify which pieces of literature are not included for consideration. The exclusion criteria were as follows:

• Studies, not relevant to our research questions.
• Studies of other than English language.
• Incomplete Studies.
• Duplicate studies
• Thesis or magazine and/or web articles.

The search outcomes are presented in Table 1 . We retrieved 281 publications from a total of 1372 using the inclusion criteria. Using the exclusion criteria, we narrowed it to 85 papers. During data extraction, the principal author finished each step, which was then examined by other authors.

The primary goal of quality assessment was to identify and eliminate lower-quality studies and to determine the validity of a study’s conclusions.

Criteria for quality assessment

We created the assessment criteria using the guidelines and updates for the SLR from previous studies. In this way, we formulated the questions given in Table 2 prior to the implementation of such criteria. Furthermore, we employed a three-tiered scale to rate each question in the reviewed papers. Yes, no, or partial. We assigned values of 1 to Yes, 0.5, partly, and 0 to No in order to produce quantitative results.

Furthermore, the work had to be graded on an average of 0.5. The principal author was in charge of applying the assessment parameter for quality to the studies, whereas the remaining authors were responsible for confirming the same assessments on a minority group of previously nominated studies. A few papers were omitted from the study using the same mechanism. However, as seen in Table 1 , after going through the entire process, the final number of studies was 85. Any discrepancies were resolved through additional discussion. Any discrepancies were resolved through additional discussion.

Data extraction

Counting the challenges and their practices is a difficult task because the majority of the challenges and practices from such areas are cascading in nature. Nonetheless, we discovered 11 primary challenges with 67 practices from a total of 85 papers. The identified challenges and their practices are presented in the next section via Tables ​ Tables3 3 – 13 , respectively. Furthermore, the papers extracted via the SLR are presented in ( S1 Appendix ) with the respective IDs and Title.

Results and discussion

The goal of this research is to uncover the key issues and practices experienced by multiple stakeholders (such as clients and vendors) when dealing with COR.

The following are the challenges that we have identified and analyzed after thorough conduction of the SLR in such areas.

Challenges in COR

Table 3 presents the 11 key challenges with the given frequencies as follows:

• 1. Control and Coordination Challenges :

‘Control and Coordination’ are one amongst the major challenge in COR. Control refers to a company’s capability to command or manage scattered events so that they meet the company’s goals. The ability of a company to coordinate these disparate activities is referred to as coordination [ 25 ].

• 2. Decision Problems :

Information system outsourcing decisions [ 26 ] are difficult to make because they entail a number of elements, including (a) establishing and managing a long-term partnership with an independent agent, and (b) revealing the critical organizational assets for controlling outside agents. When the same matter is evaluated from the perspective of COR, it becomes more challenging.

• 3. High Cost :

The overall cost [ 27 ], for example, the hidden cost, estimated cost, control cost, coordination cost, etc., for outsourcing is high in the case of COR.

• 4. Security and Compliance Challenges :

Security and Compliance is a composite challenge, including six sub-challenges (see Table 3 above) in the context of COR. It is worth noting that this particular challenge focused on the cloud version of COR.

• 5. Risky Contracts :

Managing risk is also a major issue, specifically in the context of COR, where multiple stakeholders from different cultures and zones are involved. Furthermore, large or complex IT contracts, which are nearly always incomplete, enhance the chance of risk in a variety of ways.

• 6. Poor Human Resource Management (HRM) :

People and staff management becomes extremely difficult in the situation of COR, where multiple personnel from various cultural and zone variances are coordinated, particularly in a security-related system.

• 7. IT Transitions Difficulties :

One reason for this failure is the complication of information system outsourcing transitions. In the case of COR, where several clients and vendors are involved, the transaction will undoubtedly grow more complicated.

• 8. Poor Contract Management :

Contract management, also known as the hard side, is one of the biggest issues and is discussed in more detail in the literature. For pre-contract, the supplier’s standard type contracts should not be utilized, even as a starting point, for complex outsourcing arrangements involving large sums of money, because they are always structured in favor of the outsourced vendor [ 28 ].

• 9. Different Cultural Issues :

Because of the increased level of uncertainty associated with the crossing of organisational, geographical and cultural boundaries, complex IS outsourcing strategies even become more complex [ 29 ].

• 10. General Management Complexities :

With several development centres in different time zones, geographies, and cultures, managing the complex outsourcing relationships is intrinsically tough. Furthermore, management becomes much more difficult when IT is mostly outsourced to one or more IT services providers i.e. COR.

• 11. Modern Technological Challenges :

Technology Challenges, Strategic Decision Challenges, Vendor Management Challenges, and Vendor Selection Challenges are the four key kinds of challenges often faced where more than one stackholders are involved [ 30 ].

Analysis of these challenges based on research methodology used

To analyze and well furnish the outcomes of the SLR, we further categorized the results of the identified challenges on 8 different commonly used research methodologies. The methodologies are Experimentation/Testing, Case Study/Case Studies, Empirical Survey, Interviews, Ordinary Literature Review (OLR), Systematic Literature Review (SLR), Others (i.e. Main Path Analysis and Content Analysis, Mixed Method (.i.e more than one method), as shown in ( Fig 2 ). During the analysis, we concluded that Experimentation/Testing methodology has been used more in the literature in this domain. Because in these studies, models or methods were used to check or test the challenges quantitavely, for example, measuring the cost or taking decisions. Similarly, the second mostly used methodologies are Case Study/Case Studies or Empirical Survey. Once again the reason behind this analysis was to collect empirically sound data in the real context of a case. The Mixed Methodology shows progressive results in this particular area and that’s why it is reported at number three position in the list etc.

Analysis of these challenges based on publication period

Although, we did not put any date boundaries of data during the accomplishment of an SLR, but during the analysis, we pointed out a major contribution shift from a theoretical to practical implementation by the organizations in COR context. Therefore, based on this knowledge, we divided the publication era into two periods such as papers published before 2014 and papers published in 2014 and onwards, as shown in ( Fig 3 ). We can further conclude from the analysis of ( Fig 3 ) that COR is one of the most prominent research areas to date. Because sufficient number of studies are published in the second period (i.e., in 2014 and onwards).

Analysis of these challenges based on publication venue

( Fig 4 ) gives an analysis based on publication channel. We divided the publication channels into three categories, such as papers published in Conference/Proceeding, Journal Papers, Technical Reports/Research Working Papers. From the analysis of ( Fig 4 ), it is clearly visible that the majority of papers were published in Journals. This analysis once again is an evidence that COR is always a strong research area in the literature.

Practices for identified challenges

However, it was quite difficult to accurately account for the concerned practices for the stated challenges due to the cascading nature of data. Nonetheless, we organized them to the best of our efforts and identified 67 practices for the the aforementioned challenges. Moreover, due to the time and space constraints, we present these practices for the concerned challenges in tabular form, as depicted in Tables ​ Tables4 4 to ​ to14 14 below.

Limitations and threats to validity

We did our best to conduct a systematic literature review as a study approach, including ensuring the pertinency of appropriate string selection and a sufficient sample size, but it is still conceivable that we have overlooked some crucial information. In order to reduce the danger of construct validity in terms of the usage of digital libraries, we narrowed our focus to pertinent and famous computing libraries, but again it was confined to the very few libraries. We have listed the publications in ( S1 Appendix ) for interested visitors to minimize the danger of the study’s internal validity. To prevent such dangers, each component of our SLR was confirmed via a rigorous approach and intermittent review processes by the participating researchers. The identification method has been used in the literature for similar investigations multiple times. It should be noted that the majority of the studies we gathered were from the COR database. However, only a few of them, or portions of them, do not properly identify the COR data, giving the context a hazy picture. Furthermore, only papers written in English were chosen.

The benefits of a complex IT outsourcing arrangement include enhanced cost certainty and lower expenses, increased scalability, and flexibility on demand. Complex outsourcing, on the other hand, demands interactions between many stakeholders from various areas and cultures, making it substantially more difficult to manage than regular outsourcing. Complex outsourcing is also more challenging than other forms of outsourcing since it needs a variety of control and coordination mechanisms for project management, which increases the chance of project failure accordingly. In this regard, a more systematic research is needed to uncover the important difficulties and techniques in this area in order to overcome project failure in complex outsourcing relationships. As a result, this study uses systematic literature review as a research method and serves as a pioneering effort to achieve the aforementioned goals. The authors highlighted 11 key issues after receiving the SLR data, with 67 practises in hand from a total of 85 publications. The authors want to build a comprehensive framework based on their findings in the future by using some strong approaches like as AHP and fuzzy logic, etc.

Supporting information

S1 appendix, acknowledgments.

We are grateful to other members of the Software Engineering Research Group (SERG) for their valuable feedback and support during the research process.

Funding Statement

This publication was supported by Qatar National Library, Doha, Qatar and Qatar University Internal Grant No. IRCC- 2021-010. The findings achieved herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.

Data Availability

• PLoS One. 2022; 17(1): e0262710.

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1. Abstract need to be revised to specify the demand for the review.

2. In introduction part, authors should provide more priority about outsourcing relationship.

3. The methodology of the proposed review is complex and readers find problems in understanding the procedure.

4. There is a need for more research papers that present more detailed information about outsourcing relationships and its advantages.

5. Finally, the conclusion part need a rigorous revision.

Reviewer #2: It’s a great work and great sense of methodology and great analyzing and I wish to see more relate study and more upgrades with the same concept of research in the future and keep it up and good work

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Reviewer #2:  Yes:  Haitham Medhat Abdelaziz Elsayed Aboulilah

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Author response to Decision Letter 0

21 Dec 2021

Rebuttal Letter

Original Manuscript ID: PONE-D-21-28732

Original Article Title: “Challenges And Practices Identification In Complex Outsourcing Relationship: A Systematic Literature Review”

To: PLOS ONE

Re: Response to reviewers

Dear Editor,

Thank you for allowing a resubmission of our manuscript, with an opportunity to address the reviewers’ comments.

We are uploading

(1) Our point-to-point response to the comments below (response to reviewer(s) and academic editor, respectively)

(2) A marked-up coy with track changes (Revised Manuscript with Track Changes)

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Best regards,

<author name> et al.

Reviewer#1, Concern # 1:

Reviewer’s comment: Abstract need to be revised to specify the demand for the review

Authors’ response: Many thanks for your kind suggestion. We have revised the abstract by adding such specific demand.________________________________________

Reviewer#1, Concern # 2:

Reviewer’s comment: In introduction part, authors should provide more priority about outsourcing relationship.

Authors’ response: We have added few more papers having specific focus on outsourcing relationships in the introduction section of the manuscript.________________________________________

Reviewer#1, Concern # 3:

Reviewer’s comment: The methodology of the proposed review is complex and readers find problems in understanding the procedure.

Authors’ response: We have performed systematic literature review (SLR) as a research methodology. We have followed the SLR guidelines from [25, 26], respectively. SLR is widely used research methodology in software engineering and we have used this method in our previous work having Doi as follows: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3085707, 10.1016/ j.infsof.2010.08.003 , and 10.1109/ICGSE.2009.28 etc. ________________________________________

Reviewer#1, Concern # 4:

Reviewer’s comment: There is a need for more research papers that present more detailed information about outsourcing relationships and its advantages.

Authors’ response: Our search is based on our pre-defined search string that was constructed during the planning phase of the SLR, i.e., SLR protocol. During the implementation phase of the SLR protocol, the search phase was completed in April, 2021. Now, according to this concern, we have added some more latest papers, through snowballing technique, relevant to outsourcing relationships.

________________________________________

Reviewer#1, Concern # 5:

Reviewer’s comment: Finally, the conclusion part need a rigorous revision.

Authors’ response: We have revised the whole manuscript specifically the conclusion section. ________________________________________

NOTE: We have further addressed the Journal Requirements as follows:

Concern # 1:

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

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Authors’ response: We have followed the PLOS ONE’S style and format in the revised manuscript.

Concern # 2:

Authors’ response: We have amended the Methods section, accordingly. Please see the change tracked at page 8 under the Literature Resources section of Research Methodology. During the implementation phase of the SLR protocol, the search phase was completed in April, 2021.

Concern # 3:

3. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match.

Authors’ response: No fund has been issued to us by any organization/agency. It is solely accomplished by the authors. However, the publication charges are sponsored by the Qatar university.

Concern # 4:

Authors’ response: ?

Concern # 5:

Authors’ response: We have updated the manuscript according to the PLOS LaTeX template, by following the given link.

Concern # 6:

Authors’ response: We have reviewed the references list and revised it properly, and ensured its correctness and completeness. We have added the references of additional papers which we have included now, as according to reviewers’ suggestions. Furthermore, we have removed/retracted the references of excluded papers, because these references have been removed during merging and updating the table data for further improvements.

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- Make sure all figures and tables are referred to in the body of the paper.

- It is recommended to use a professional native English-speaking editor. Papers with less than excellent English will not be published even if technically perfect.

Authors’ response: We have addressed all the mentioned comments/concerns, accordingly.

NOTE: It is worth noting that we have revised or renamed few challenges, and similarly, merged together some of the previously identified practices for improvements. In this way, we finally collected 67 practices for 11 identified challenges.

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

Challenges And Practices Identification In Complex Outsourcing Relationship: A Systematic Literature Review

PONE-D-21-28732R1

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Reviewer #2: It’s nice research paper and really good analysis with a perfect methodology and based on good theoretical and looking forward to see more papers can doing with same content and research base as same as the current one cause really it’s open for opportunity to creat a new one , wish you all the best

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Extensions & Add Ons

• Open access
• Published: 24 April 2024

Breast cancer screening motivation and behaviours of women aged over 75 years: a scoping review

• Virginia Dickson-Swift 1 ,
• Joanne Adams 1 ,
• Evelien Spelten 1 ,
• Irene Blackberry 2 ,
• Carlene Wilson 3 , 4 , 5 &
• Eva Yuen 3 , 6 , 7 , 8  

BMC Women's Health volume  24 , Article number:  256 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

100 Accesses

Metrics details

This scoping review aimed to identify and present the evidence describing key motivations for breast cancer screening among women aged ≥ 75 years. Few of the internationally available guidelines recommend continued biennial screening for this age group. Some suggest ongoing screening is unnecessary or should be determined on individual health status and life expectancy. Recent research has shown that despite recommendations regarding screening, older women continue to hold positive attitudes to breast screening and participate when the opportunity is available.

All original research articles that address motivation, intention and/or participation in screening for breast cancer among women aged ≥ 75 years were considered for inclusion. These included articles reporting on women who use public and private breast cancer screening services and those who do not use screening services (i.e., non-screeners).

The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews was used to guide this review. A comprehensive search strategy was developed with the assistance of a specialist librarian to access selected databases including: the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medline, Web of Science and PsychInfo. The review was restricted to original research studies published since 2009, available in English and focusing on high-income countries (as defined by the World Bank). Title and abstract screening, followed by an assessment of full-text studies against the inclusion criteria was completed by at least two reviewers. Data relating to key motivations, screening intention and behaviour were extracted, and a thematic analysis of study findings undertaken.

A total of fourteen (14) studies were included in the review. Thematic analysis resulted in identification of three themes from included studies highlighting that decisions about screening were influenced by: knowledge of the benefits and harms of screening and their relationship to age; underlying attitudes to the importance of cancer screening in women's lives; and use of decision aids to improve knowledge and guide decision-making.

The results of this review provide a comprehensive overview of current knowledge regarding the motivations and screening behaviour of older women about breast cancer screening which may inform policy development.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Breast cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world overtaking lung cancer in 2021 [ 1 ]. Across the globe, breast cancer contributed to 25.8% of the total number of new cases of cancer diagnosed in 2020 [ 2 ] and accounts for a high disease burden for women [ 3 ]. Screening for breast cancer is an effective means of detecting early-stage cancer and has been shown to significantly improve survival rates [ 4 ]. A recent systematic review of international screening guidelines found that most countries recommend that women have biennial mammograms between the ages of 40–70 years [ 5 ] with some recommending that there should be no upper age limit [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ] and others suggesting that benefits of continued screening for women over 75 are not clear [ 13 , 14 , 15 ].

Some guidelines suggest that the decision to end screening should be determined based on the individual health status of the woman, their life expectancy and current health issues [ 5 , 16 , 17 ]. This is because the benefits of mammography screening may be limited after 7 years due to existing comorbidities and limited life expectancy [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ], with some jurisdictions recommending breast cancer screening for women ≥ 75 years only when life expectancy is estimated as at least 7–10 years [ 22 ]. Others have argued that decisions about continuing with screening mammography should depend on individual patient risk and health management preferences [ 23 ]. This decision is likely facilitated by a discussion between a health care provider and patient about the harms and benefits of screening outside the recommended ages [ 24 , 25 ]. While mammography may enable early detection of breast cancer, it is clear that false-positive results and overdiagnosis Footnote 1 may occur. Studies have estimated that up to 25% of breast cancer cases in the general population may be over diagnosed [ 26 , 27 , 28 ].

The risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer increases with age and approximately 80% of new cases of breast cancer in high-income countries are in women over the age of 50 [ 29 ]. The average age of first diagnosis of breast cancer in high income countries is comparable to that of Australian women which is now 61 years [ 2 , 4 , 29 ]. Studies show that women aged ≥ 75 years generally have positive attitudes to mammography screening and report high levels of perceived benefits including early detection of breast cancer and a desire to stay healthy as they age [ 21 , 30 , 31 , 32 ]. Some women aged over 74 participate, or plan to participate, in screening despite recommendations from health professionals and government guidelines advising against it [ 33 ]. Results of a recent review found that knowledge of the recommended guidelines and the potential harms of screening are limited and many older women believed that the benefits of continued screening outweighed the risks [ 30 ].

Very few studies have been undertaken to understand the motivations of women to screen or to establish screening participation rates among women aged ≥ 75 and older. This is surprising given that increasing age is recognised as a key risk factor for the development of breast cancer, and that screening is offered in many locations around the world every two years up until 74 years. The importance of this topic is high given the ambiguity around best practice for participation beyond 74 years. A preliminary search of Open Science Framework, PROSPERO, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and JBI Evidence Synthesis in May 2022 did not locate any reviews on this topic.

This scoping review has allowed for the mapping of a broad range of research to explore the breadth and depth of the literature, summarize the evidence and identify knowledge gaps [ 34 , 35 ]. This information has supported the development of a comprehensive overview of current knowledge of motivations of women to screen and screening participation rates among women outside the targeted age of many international screening programs.

Materials and methods

Research question.

The research question for this scoping review was developed by applying the Population—Concept—Context (PCC) framework [ 36 ]. The current review addresses the research question “What research has been undertaken in high-income countries (context) exploring the key motivations to screen for breast cancer and screening participation (concepts) among women ≥ 75 years of age (population)?

Eligibility criteria

Participants.

Women aged ≥ 75 years were the key population. Specifically, motivations to screen and screening intention and behaviour and the variables that discriminate those who screen from those who do not (non-screeners) were utilised as the key predictors and outcomes respectively.

From a conceptual perspective it was considered that motivation led to behaviour, therefore articles that described motivation and corresponding behaviour were considered. These included articles reporting on women who use public (government funded) and private (fee for service) breast cancer screening services and those who do not use screening services (i.e., non-screeners).

The scope included high-income countries using the World Bank definition [ 37 ]. These countries have broadly similar health systems and opportunities for breast cancer screening in both public and private settings.

Types of sources

All studies reporting original research in peer-reviewed journals from January 2009 were eligible for inclusion, regardless of design. This date was selected due to an evaluation undertaken for BreastScreen Australia recommending expansion of the age group to include 70–74-year-old women [ 38 ]. This date was also indicative of international debate regarding breast cancer screening effectiveness at this time [ 39 , 40 ]. Reviews were also included, regardless of type—scoping, systematic, or narrative. Only sources published in English and available through the University’s extensive research holdings were eligible for inclusion. Ineligible materials were conference abstracts, letters to the editor, editorials, opinion pieces, commentaries, newspaper articles, dissertations and theses.

This scoping review was registered with the Open Science Framework database ( https://osf.io/fd3eh ) and followed Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology for scoping reviews [ 35 , 36 ]. Although ethics approval is not required for scoping reviews the broader study was approved by the University Ethics Committee (approval number HEC 21249).

Search strategy

A pilot search strategy was developed in consultation with an expert health librarian and tested in MEDLINE (OVID) and conducted on 3 June 2022. Articles from this pilot search were compared with seminal articles previously identified by the members of the team and used to refine the search terms. The search terms were then searched as both keywords and subject headings (e.g., MeSH) in the titles and abstracts and Boolean operators employed. A full MEDLINE search was then carried out by the librarian (see Table  1 ). This search strategy was adapted for use in each of the following databases: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Web of Science and PsychInfo databases. The references of included studies have been hand-searched to identify any additional evidence sources.

Study/source of evidence selection

Following the search, all identified citations were collated and uploaded into EndNote v.X20 (Clarivate Analytics, PA, USA) and duplicates removed. The resulting articles were then imported into Covidence – Cochrane’s systematic review management software [ 41 ]. Duplicates were removed once importation was complete, and title and abstract screening was undertaken against the eligibility criteria. A sample of 25 articles were assessed by all reviewers to ensure reliability in the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Team discussion was used to ensure consistent application. The Covidence software supports blind reviewing with two reviewers required at each screening phase. Potentially relevant sources were retrieved in full text and were assessed against the inclusion criteria by two independent reviewers. Conflicts were flagged within the software which allows the team to discuss those that have disagreements until a consensus was reached. Reasons for exclusion of studies at full text were recorded and reported in the scoping review. The Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic Reviews extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist was used to guide the reporting of the review [ 42 ] and all stages were documented using the PRISMA-ScR flow chart [ 42 ].

Data extraction

A data extraction form was created in Covidence and used to extract study characteristics and to confirm the study’s relevance. This included specific details such as article author/s, title, year of publication, country, aim, population, setting, data collection methods and key findings relevant to the review question. The draft extraction form was modified as needed during the data extraction process.

Data analysis and presentation

Extracted data were summarised in tabular format (see Table  2 ). Consistent with the guidelines for the effective reporting of scoping reviews [ 43 ] and the JBI framework [ 35 ] the final stage of the review included thematic analysis of the key findings of the included studies. Study findings were imported into QSR NVivo with coding of each line of text. Descriptive codes reflected key aspects of the included studies related to the motivations and behaviours of women > 75 years about breast cancer screening.

In line with the reporting requirements for scoping reviews the search results for this review are presented in Fig.  1 [ 44 ].

PRISMA Flowchart. From: Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, Boutron I, Hoffmann TC, Mulrow CD, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ 2021;372:n71. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71

A total of fourteen [ 14 ] studies were included in the review with studies from the following countries, US n  = 12 [ 33 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 ], UK n  = 1 [ 23 ] and France n  = 1 [ 56 ]. Sample sizes varied, with most containing fewer than 50 women ( n  = 8) [ 33 , 45 , 46 , 48 , 51 , 52 , 55 ]. Two had larger samples including a French study with 136 women (a sub-set of a larger sample) [ 56 ], and one mixed method study in the UK with a sample of 26 women undertaking interviews and 479 women completing surveys [ 23 ]. One study did not report exact numbers [ 50 ]. Three studies [ 47 , 53 , 54 ] were undertaken by a group of researchers based in the US utilising the same sample of women, however each of the papers focused on different primary outcomes. The samples in the included studies were recruited from a range of locations including primary medical care clinics, specialist medical clinics, University affiliated medical clinics, community-based health centres and community outreach clinics [ 47 , 53 , 54 ].

Data collection methods varied and included: quantitative ( n  = 8), qualitative ( n  = 5) and mixed methods ( n  = 1). A range of data collection tools and research designs were utilised; pre/post, pilot and cross-sectional surveys, interviews, and secondary analysis of existing data sets. Seven studies focused on the use of a Decision Aids (DAs), either in original or modified form, developed by Schonberg et al. [ 55 ] as a tool to increase knowledge about the harms and benefits of screening for older women [ 45 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 52 , 54 , 55 ]. Three studies focused on intention to screen [ 33 , 53 , 56 ], two on knowledge of, and attitudes to, screening [ 23 , 46 ], one on information needs relating to risks and benefits of screening discontinuation [ 51 ], and one on perceptions about discontinuation of screening and impact of social interactions on screening [ 50 ].

The three themes developed from the analysis of the included studies highlighted that decisions about screening were primarily influenced by: (1) knowledge of the benefits and harms of screening and their relationship to age; (2) underlying attitudes to the importance of cancer screening in women's lives; and (3) exposure to decision aids designed to facilitate informed decision-making. Each of these themes will be presented below drawing on the key findings of the appropriate studies. The full dataset of extracted data can be found in Table  2 .

Knowledge of the benefits and harms of screening ≥ 75 years

The decision to participate in routine mammography is influenced by individual differences in cognition and affect, interpersonal relationships, provider characteristics, and healthcare system variables. Women typically perceive mammograms as a positive, beneficial and routine component of care [ 46 ] and an important aspect of taking care of themselves [ 23 , 46 , 49 ]. One qualitative study undertaken in the US showed that few women had discussed mammography cessation or the potential harms of screening with their health care providers and some women reported they would insist on receiving mammography even without a provider recommendation to continue screening [ 46 ].

Studies suggested that ageing itself, and even poor health, were not seen as reasonable reasons for screening cessation. For many women, guidance from a health care provider was deemed the most important influence on decision-making [ 46 ]. Preferences for communication about risk and benefits were varied with one study reporting women would like to learn more about harms and risks and recommended that this information be communicated via physicians or other healthcare providers, included in brochures/pamphlets, and presented outside of clinical settings (e.g., in community-based seniors groups) [ 51 ]. Others reported that women were sometimes sceptical of expert and government recommendations [ 33 ] although some were happy to participate in discussions with health educators or care providers about breast cancer screening harms and benefits and potential cessation [ 52 ].

Underlying attitudes to the importance of cancer screening at and beyond 75 years

Included studies varied in describing the importance of screening, with some attitudes based on past attendance and some based on future intentions to screen. Three studies reported findings indicating that some women intended to continue screening after 75 years of age [ 23 , 45 , 46 ], with one study in the UK reporting that women supported an extension of the automatic recall indefinitely, regardless of age or health status. In this study, failure to invite older women to screen was interpreted as age discrimination [ 23 ]. The desire to continue screening beyond 75 was also highlighted in a study from France that found that 60% of the women ( n  = 136 aged ≥ 75) intended to pursue screening in the future, and 27 women aged ≥ 75, who had never undergone mammography previously (36%), intended to do so in the future [ 56 ]. In this same study, intentions to screen varied significantly [ 56 ]. There were no sociodemographic differences observed between screened and unscreened women with regard to level of education, income, health risk behaviour (smoking, alcohol consumption), knowledge about the importance and the process of screening, or psychological features (fear of the test, fear of the results, fear of the disease, trust in screening impact) [ 56 ]. Further analysis showed that three items were statistically correlated with a higher rate of attendance at screening: (1) screening was initiated by a physician; (2) the women had a consultation with a gynaecologist during the past 12 months; and (3) the women had already undergone at least five screening mammograms. Analysis highlighted that although average income, level of education, psychological features or other types of health risk behaviours did not impact screening intention, having a mammogram previously impacted likelihood of ongoing screening. There was no information provided that explained why women who had not previously undergone screening might do so in the future.

A mixed methods study in the UK reported similar findings [ 23 ]. Utilising interviews ( n  = 26) and questionnaires ( n  = 479) with women ≥ 70 years (median age 75 years) the overwhelming result (90.1%) was that breast screening should be offered to all women indefinitely regardless of age, health status or fitness [ 23 ], and that many older women were keen to continue screening. Both the interview and survey data confirmed women were uncertain about eligibility for breast screening. The survey data showed that just over half the women (52.9%) were unaware that they could request mammography or knew how to access it. Key reasons for screening discontinuation were not being invited for screening (52.1%) and not knowing about self-referral (35.1%).

Women reported that not being invited to continue screening sent messages that screening was no longer important or required for this age group [ 23 ]. Almost two thirds of the women completing the survey (61.6%) said they would forget to attend screening without an invitation. Other reasons for screening discontinuation included transport difficulties (25%) and not wishing to burden family members (24.7%). By contrast, other studies have reported that women do not endorse discontinuation of screening mammography due to advancing age or poor health, but some may be receptive to reducing screening frequency on recommendation from their health care provider [ 46 , 51 ].

Use of Decision Aids (DAs) to improve knowledge and guide screening decision-making

Many women reported poor knowledge about the harms and benefits of screening with studies identifying an important role for DAs. These aids have been shown to be effective in improving knowledge of the harms and benefits of screening [ 45 , 54 , 55 ] including for women with low educational attainment; as compared to women with high educational attainment [ 47 ]. DAs can increase knowledge about screening [ 47 , 49 ] and may decrease the intention to continue screening after the recommended age [ 45 , 52 , 54 ]. They can be used by primary care providers to support a conversation about breast screening intention and reasons for discontinuing screening. In one pilot study undertaken in the US using a DA, 5 of the 8 women (62.5%) indicated they intended to continue to receive mammography; however, 3 participants planned to get them less often [ 45 ]. When asked whether they thought their physician would want them to get a mammogram, 80% said “yes” on pre-test; this figure decreased to 62.5% after exposure to the DA. This pilot study suggests that the use of a decision-aid may result in fewer women ≥ 75 years old continuing to screen for breast cancer [ 45 ].

Similar findings were evident in two studies drawing on the same data undertaken in the US [ 48 , 53 ]. Using a larger sample ( n  = 283), women’s intentions to screen prior to a visit with their primary care provider and then again after exposure to the DA were compared. Results showed that 21.7% of women reduced their intention to be screened, 7.9% increased their intentions to be screened, and 70.4% did not change. Compared to those who had no change or increased their screening intentions, women who had a decrease in screening intention were significantly less likely to receive screening after 18 months. Generally, studies have shown that women aged 75 and older find DAs acceptable and helpful [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 55 ] and using them had the potential to impact on a women’s intention to screen [ 55 ].

Cadet and colleagues [ 49 ] explored the impact of educational attainment on the use of DAs. Results highlight that education moderates the utility of these aids; women with lower educational attainment were less likely to understand all the DA’s content (46.3% vs 67.5%; P < 0.001); had less knowledge of the benefits and harms of mammography (adjusted mean ± standard error knowledge score, 7.1 ± 0.3 vs 8.1 ± 0.3; p < 0.001); and were less likely to have their screening intentions impacted (adjusted percentage, 11.4% vs 19.4%; p  = 0.01).

This scoping review summarises current knowledge regarding motivations and screening behaviours of women over 75 years. The findings suggest that awareness of the importance of breast cancer screening among women aged ≥ 75 years is high [ 23 , 46 , 49 ] and that many women wish to continue screening regardless of perceived health status or age. This highlights the importance of focusing on motivation and screening behaviours and the multiple factors that influence ongoing participation in breast screening programs.

The generally high regard attributed to screening among women aged ≥ 75 years presents a complex challenge for health professionals who are focused on potential harm (from available national and international guidelines) in ongoing screening for women beyond age 75 [ 18 , 20 , 57 ]. Included studies highlight that many women relied on the advice of health care providers regarding the benefits and harms when making the decision to continue breast screening [ 46 , 51 , 52 ], however there were some that did not [ 33 ]. Having a previous pattern of screening was noted as being more significant to ongoing intention than any other identified socio-demographic feature [ 56 ]. This is perhaps because women will not readily forgo health care practices that they have always considered important and that retain ongoing importance for the broader population.

For those women who had discontinued screening after the age of 74 it was apparent that the rationale for doing so was not often based on choice or receipt of information, but rather on factors that impact decision-making in relation to screening. These included no longer receiving an invitation to attend, transport difficulties and not wanting to be a burden on relatives or friends [ 23 , 46 , 51 ]. Ongoing receipt of invitations to screen was an important aspect of maintaining a capacity to choose [ 23 ]. This was particularly important for those women who had been regular screeners.

Women over 75 require more information to make decisions regarding screening [ 23 , 52 , 54 , 55 ], however health care providers must also be aware that the element of choice is important for older women. Having a capacity to choose avoids any notion of discrimination based on age, health status, gender or sociodemographic difference and acknowledges the importance of women retaining control over their health [ 23 ]. It was apparent that some women would choose to continue screening at a reduced frequency if this option was available and that women should have access to information facilitating self-referral [ 23 , 45 , 46 , 51 , 56 ].

Decision-making regarding ongoing breast cancer screening has been facilitated via the use of Decision Aids (DAs) within clinical settings [ 54 , 55 ]. While some studies suggest that women will make a decision regardless of health status, the use of DAs has impacted women’s decision to screen. While this may have limited benefit for those of lower educational attainment [ 48 ] they have been effective in improving knowledge relating to harms and benefits of screening particularly where they have been used to support a conversation with women about the value of screening [ 54 , 55 , 56 ].

Women have identified challenges in engaging in conversations with health care providers regarding ongoing screening, because providers frequently draw on projections of life expectancy and over-diagnosis [ 17 , 51 ]. As a result, these conversations about screening after age 75 years often do not occur [ 46 ]. It is likely that health providers may need more support and guidance in leading these conversations. This may be through the use of DAs or standardised checklists. It may be possible to incorporate these within existing health preventive measures for this age group. The potential for advice regarding ongoing breast cancer screening to be available outside of clinical settings may provide important pathways for conversations with women regarding health choices. Provision of information and advice in settings such as community based seniors groups [ 51 ] offers a potential platform to broaden conversations and align sources of information, not only with health professionals but amongst women themselves. This may help to address any misconception regarding eligibility and access to services [ 23 ]. It may also be aligned with other health promotion and lifestyle messages provided to this age group.

Limitations of the review

The searches that formed the basis of this review were carried in June 2022. Although the search was comprehensive, we have only captured those studies that were published in the included databases from 2009. There may have been other studies published outside of these periods. We also limited the search to studies published in English with full-text availability.

The emphasis of a scoping review is on comprehensive coverage and synthesis of the key findings, rather than on a particular standard of evidence and, consequently a quality assessment of the included studies was not undertaken. This has resulted in the inclusion of a wide range of study designs and data collection methods. It is important to note that three studies included in the review drew on the same sample of women (283 over > 75)[ 49 , 53 , 54 ]. The results of this review provide valuable insights into motivations and behaviours for breast cancer screening for older women, however they should be interpreted with caution given the specific methodological and geographical limitations.

Conclusion and recommendations

This scoping review highlighted a range of key motivations and behaviours in relation to breast cancer screening for women ≥ 75 years of age. The results provide some insight into how decisions about screening continuation after 74 are made and how informed decision-making can be supported. Specifically, this review supports the following suggestions for further research and policy direction:

Further research regarding breast cancer screening motivations and behaviours for women over 75 would provide valuable insight for health providers delivering services to women in this age group.

Health providers may benefit from the broader use of decision aids or structured checklists to guide conversations with women over 75 regarding ongoing health promotion/preventive measures.

Providing health-based information in non-clinical settings frequented by women in this age group may provide a broader reach of information and facilitate choices. This may help to reduce any perception of discrimination based on age, health status or socio-demographic factors.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analysed during this study is included in this published article (see Table  2 above).

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Ange Hayden-Johns (expert librarian) who assisted with the development of the search criteria and undertook the relevant searches and Tejashree Kangutkar who assisted with some of the Covidence work.

This work was supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care (ID: Health/20–21/E21-10463).

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VDS conceived and designed the scoping review. VDS & JA developed the search strategy with librarian support, and all authors (VDS, JA, ES, IB, CW, EY) participated in the screening and data extraction stages and assisted with writing the review. All authors provided editorial support and read and approved the final manuscript prior to submission.

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Dickson-Swift, V., Adams, J., Spelten, E. et al. Breast cancer screening motivation and behaviours of women aged over 75 years: a scoping review. BMC Women's Health 24 , 256 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-024-03094-z

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-024-03094-z

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