Examining IT Outsourcing Service Continuance: An Expectation-Confirmation Model

摘要

This is a research-in-progress paper that examines clients' decision to continue engaging their current IT outsourcing vendors. It employs the lens of expectation-confirmation theory to evaluate how prior expectation relates to the evaluation of actual vendor performance, how expectation-confirmation influences client satisfaction, and how it leads to the decision of outsourcing service (dis)continuance. The theory suggests that positive confirmation and positive disconfirmation lead to client satisfaction and higher probability of outsourcing service continuance while negative disconfirmation leads to dissatisfaction and service discontinuance. Formation of expectation is a dynamic process as clients continuously updating their expectations based on new experiences. When performing expectation-confirmation evaluation, clients may refer to new expectations that are not present prior to relationship engagement but are formed during the course of the relationship.