Online Sourcing: Investigations from Service Clients’ Perspective

In this paper we empirically examine a new global phenomenon - online sourcing – with a quantitative research method. Therise of online sourcing not only boosts the emergence of several new business models in current digitalized economy, but alsowill fundamentally change the way work is done. Thus, gaining a deep understanding of the adoption of online sourcingbecomes particularly important. Drawing upon theories of firms including transaction cost theory, we propose an integrativetheoretical framework for the understanding of online sourcing decisions from the service clients’ perspective. The researchmodel is examined with the data collected from an online sourcing platform. Our findings suggest integrative theoreticalframework rather than single perspective in understanding online sourcing decisions. Moreover, the study discloses howdifferent theories are interrelated within an integrative theoretical framework under online sourcing context, as well as therelative importance of each theoretical perspective