SourceIT

SourceIT is a design science research project that received funding from the Danish Ministry of Research, Technology and Innovation in December 2007.
The total budget is the equivalent of $6 million (USD) over 3 years. One University, one technology transfer organization, and three companies are participating in the project. The aim of SourceIT is to answer questions like:
How can a company be innovative while at the same time optimizing sourcing?
What are the pre-conditions for optimal sourcing in relation to innovative capability?
Sourcing is defined as both in- and out-sourcing, as well as the decision-making about letting customer or client organisations develop part of the IT product. For example one of the participating companies develops an electronic patient journal system. One sourcing decision is how much of the system should be developed or adapted locally in the specific department at a hospital.
The SourceIT project is using a design science research approach to develop a method for sourcing decisions. The approach to be developed is a so-called design nexus (Pries-Heje & Baskerville, 2008). It is foreseen that DSR needs to be combined with an action research approach thereby "covering a weakness in both research methods; namely that design science is extended with learning cycles characterising action research thereby ensuring better learning. And action research is extended with a formalised approach to how theory is made explicit; namely in the form of a design artefact"