Sourcing literature reveals that large firms bundle or unbundle existing business services by means of modularization to achieve organizational agility. However, one may assume that firms need some degree of maturity to manage the complexity that comes along with bundling modularized services. The aim of our research is to understand how modularization interrelates with firm maturity when bundling business services, a topic that has been given limited attention in sourcing literature. Based on an exploratory research amongst 110 firms we found evidence for the relevance of influencing factors on firm maturity in bundling services. The findings provide evidence that the number of business services and the size of the firm correlate with the maturity of the firm. More specifically, our analysis identified that the type of market in which a firm acts (i.e. private or public) and adding the Marketing business function to a bundle does not increase firm maturity. Our empirical research contributes to sourcing literature as we expanded previous research by taking a more in-depth view on business services while providing up-to-date insights.

Empirical research on the maturity of retained IT organizations has remained scarce. IS literature shows that studies do not investigate the effect of organizational culture determinants on the relationship with the growth stage of an retained organization. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between organizational culture determinants and retained organizations stages of growth. Data from three case studies was collected and the Social Exchange Theory is used to understand the degree of interaction between the staff of retained organizations. Our analysis identified that culture determinants form a predictable pattern with the growth stage of a retained organization. Specifically, the culture determinants Management and Focus fit with their assumed growth stage in all three case studies. This might indicate that both determinants are interrelated as executive management of a firm has to develop a clear focus to achieve their IT mission and goals. Moreover, from an individual level, the results show that the degree of social interaction between staff is influenced by the perception of IT in the organization.