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Structural and Behavioral Fit in Software Sourcing Alignment

In recent years, the corporate software ecosystem has been subject to tremendous changes. Vendors are increasingly offering enterprise systems in a Software-as-a-Service setting. For most of their applications, client companies can now choose between developing software in-house or sourcing packaged software in an on-premises or on-demand mode. However, no attempt has been made so far to explicitly compare these three sourcing arrangements with each other in terms of alignment and performance. The presented paper makes a contribution to fill this research gap. Drawing upon the ontological view of information systems, we develop a novel understanding of software sourcing arrangements. Based on exploratory case studies that are analyzed in the light of extant literature, we examine different types of fit arising from a structural and behavioral dimension of software sourcing. We further show how these types of fit are interrelated and discuss their performance implications.