Measuring Outsourcing Relationship Quality: Towards a Social Network Analysis Approach

Outsourcing initiatives are complex undertakings requiring careful management of the client/vendor relationship. While monitoring the vendor's performance is a common practice, insight into the status of the `soft' aspects of the relationship, such as trust, is often not available, although research highlights the social aspects as a critical success factor. However, monitoring the softer facets' quality is difficult: Vendor managers track the status of the soft aspects, if at all, using survey tools among involved staff. This has shortcomings because it does not only capture subjective perceptions, but also interrupts the daily business of the participants. To develop a more objective instrument that collects data without interfering daily business, we draw on social network analysis. We suggest an approach that will eventually allow managers to monitor relationship quality in an efficient and objective way. The results suggest metrics to measure the soft factors of a relationship, such as trust and commitment.