An integrative model of clients' decision to adopt an Application Service Provider

Abstract

Application Services Providers (ASPs) exploit the economics of delivering commercial off-the-shelf software over the Internet to many dispersed users, but the decision-making process to adopt the ASP business model can be complex requiring a comprehensive consideration of various factors. As a new form of outsourcing, the ASP business model differs from traditional outsourcing models with respect to the attributes associated with vendors, clients, and applications. These differences are expected to demand decision models that are distinct from those in the traditional IS outsourcing. In this study, an integrative model for ASP adoption that incorporates economic determinants, strategic determinants, and social determinants is developed. This integrative model includes the individual effects of these determinants, as well as the moderating effects of the social determinants upon the economic and strategic determinants. To test this research model and its associated hypotheses, two self-administered surveys, one among clients of a leading ASP and the other among nationally selected top computer executives, are conducted. The findings from the two surveys show that economic, strategic and social factors impact a client’s decision on ASP adoption. Moreover, among prospective ASP adopters, trust had a strong tendency to influence the effect of cost benefits and IT deficiency removal on ASP adoptions. This study empirically examines the determinants of ASP adoption from an integrative perspective. This model contributes to the academic literature by presenting a broad view for understanding ASP adoption decision. The findings from the survey elucidate the independent impact of the economic, social and strategic perspectives as well as interactions among the three perspectives for ASP adoption. For practitioners, this study can shed insight on special determinants in ASP adoption. It can help ASPs gain a better understanding of clients’ concerns for ASP adoption and make corresponding adjustments in the services in order to attract clients and increase application usage.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 10 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.