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and therefore these two confl icting factors determine the degree of autonomy for the amount
of shared data. When the degree of autonomy is determined, the insourcing and outsourc-
ing companies establish a sharing policy on the amount of shared data in their outsourcing
contract. Regarding the autonomy issue, existing studies on process information sharing
have addressed little about the mechanisms to establish a sharing policy and how to control
the amount of shared process information according to the sharing policy. Specifi cally, the
autonomy problem can be further articulated by the following questions:
(i) How can the amount of shared process information be systematically represented as
a sharing policy concerning the determined degree of autonomy between insourcing
and outsourcing companies?
(ii) How can the system for process information sharing restrict and control the amount
of shared process information according to the sharing policy, while accommodating
seamless process information sharing?
On the other hand, agility means that companies constantly refi ne their business strategies
and information systems in order to meet both customer needs and environmental changes or
to take new opportunities (Goranson, 1999; Ramamurthy, 2003). For example, an insourcing
company needs to refi ne its business to meet the changing needs of outsourcing companies
and to widen its customer base. It is well recognized that agility is one of core competencies
in the fast-changing modern business environment (Scott-Morton, 1994). In terms of process
information sharing, we specifi cally consider that an insourcing company adopts either of
the following two methods in response to the changes of business environments: First,
the internal business process is amended to meet newly proposed market or organizational
constraints or to improve business operations from the advent of new technologies (Casati,
1998; Mangan, 2002). Second, the business relationships with outsourcing companies are
modifi ed due to the changes of mutual dependencies or external environments, and cor-
responding sharing policies are changed accordingly (Bakos, 1998; Chircu, 2000). These
methods change the schema and amount of shared process information; accordingly, the
system for process information sharing should also be modifi ed and recompiled to refl ect
the changes incurred in the system procedures for data sharing. The more frequently such a
change arises, the more seriously the maintenance cost is to be considered. Such an agility
problem can be further delineated by the following questions:
(i) How can the system for process information sharing adapt itself to the change of in-
ternal business process or sharing policy of an insourcing company without causing
serious maintenance cost?
(ii) In developing the system, which system components are suitable or necessary to ac-
commodate such adaptability?
Research Objective and Adopted Technologies
The main objective of this chapter is to propose a federated process framework as
a conceptual design to support effective implementation of process information sharing
between insourcing and outsourcing companies, while resolving the autonomy and agility
problems in the outsourcing environment. In the actual development of process information
sharing, implementation issues such as security control and data confl ict resolution should
