Transaction Cost Economics on Trial Again: A Commentary on "The Role of Transaction Cost Economics in Information Technology Outsourcing Research: A Meta-analysis of the Choice of Contract Type"

We welcome the opportunity to comment on ‘‘The Role of Transaction Cost Economics in Information Technology Outsourcing Research: A Meta-analysis of the Choice of Contract Type”. We think Schermann et al. (2016) offers the IS community an opportunity to debate not only Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) in the context of Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO), but also provides an opportunity to debate the larger issue of fair theoretical appropriations. We structure our commentary as follows. First, we briefly comment on the value of the empirical findings in Schermann et al. (2016). Second, we raise the question, ‘‘What is a fair theoretical appropriation?” We present three arguments relevant to fair theoretical appropriations and assess Schermann et al. (2016) relative to the arguments. Overall, our aim is not to ‘‘win” the debate or to comment on one isolated review article, but to invoke a thoughtful conversation within the IS community.