EMPIRICAL VERIFICATION OF THE CONTOUR-INDEX MODEL OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT TRANSFORMATION IN INTERNATIONAL IT OUTSOURCING COMPANIES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25313/3083-7782-2026-5-8Keywords:
strategic management, transformation of strategic management, international IT outsourcing companies, dynamic capabilities, strategy-as-practice, configuration theory, contour-index model, empirical verification, strategic contoursAbstract
Introduction. Contemporary strategic management of international IT outsourcing companies is shaped under conditions of high technological turbulence, accelerated digital change, the development of phantomization, artificial intelligence, ecosystem interaction, and increasing requirements for organizational adaptability. Under such conditions, strategic changes in corporate activity should be considered not merely as separate managerial decisions or responses to the external environment, but as empirical manifestations of the restructuring of the strategic management system itself. Of particular importance is the identification of how the priorities, contours, configuration, intensity, and phase logic of the development of strategic management in international IT outsourcing companies are changing.
Purpose. The purpose of the study is to empirically verify the contour-index model of strategic management transformation in international IT outsourcing companies on the basis of a comparative analysis of their annual corporate reports. This makes it possible to identify the intensity of strategic changes, the configuration of strategic contours, structural shifts between them, and the phase trajectory of the development of the strategic management system.
Materials and Methods. The materials of the study include annual corporate reports of international IT outsourcing companies for 2015–2024, as well as scientific works by domestic and foreign authors in the fields of strategic management, dynamic capabilities, the strategy-as-practice approach, configuration theory, and the analysis of transformation processes in international companies.
In the course of the study, the following scientific methods were used: content analysis of strategically significant fragments of companies’ annual reports; inductive grouping of strategic indicators according to semantic proximity and managerial function; contour-index modelling to construct a profile of strategic management transformation; index analysis to assess the intensity, structural shift, and balance of strategic contours; comparative analysis to compare companies with one another; and logical generalization of the results to formulate conclusions regarding the phase dynamics of strategic management development.
Results. The article substantiates and empirically verifies the contour-index model of strategic management transformation in international IT outsourcing companies. It is demonstrated that the transformation of strategic management in such companies unfolds as a nonlinear process of interaction among strategic contours, which reflect the key directions of restructuring within the strategic management system: strategic repositioning, restructuring of the service portfolio, development of platform-cloud architecture, strengthening the role of artificial intelligence, data, and automation, consulting transformation, ecosystem orchestration, and security and resilience management.
It is established that the contour-index model makes it possible not only to record the presence of strategic changes, but also to explain their internal structure, intensity, balance, and phase logic of development. The empirical verification showed that the companies under study demonstrate different types of strategic management evolution; however, in all cases, this evolution can be described through a unified analytical sequence: from strategic indicators to inductive groups, strategic contours, index indicators, and transformation phases.
The practical significance of the results lies in the possibility of using the proposed model for strategic diagnostics, analytical benchmarking, assessment of the architecture of strategic management, and identification of further directions for the transformation of international IT outsourcing companies.
Prospects. Further scientific research should focus on expanding the empirical base of the contour-index model by including a larger number of international IT companies, deepening the quantitative verification of index indicators, and adapting the model for the analysis of companies in other sectors of the digital economy. This will enhance the universality of the proposed approach and broaden the possibilities of its application for diagnosing the transformation of strategic management under conditions of technological instability.
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