How PMBOK standard and partnership quality influence IT outsourcing success: An investigation of the mediated moderation effects

We develop a mediated moderation model to explain how project management body of knowledge (PMBOK) standard and partnership quality interactively affect the IT outsourcing success, and whether service quality mediates their joint effect on IT outsourcing success. Conducting a survey of 118 project managers in nine Iranian IT outsourcers, the model and hypothesis are empirically tested. We find a negative moderation effect between PMBOK standard and partnership quality, showing that partnership quality’s effect on IT outsourcing success becomes weak when the level of PMBOK standard is high. More interesting, we find that this moderation effect is fully mediated by service quality, which in turn directly increases IT outsourcing success. In addition, PMBOK standard is found to negatively moderate the relationship between service quality and IT outsourcing success. These findings shed light on the complex mechanisms underlying PMBOK standard, partnership quality, and service quality in IT outsourcing success, and provide several implications in theory and practice of IT outsourcing management.