Software development outsourcing, asset specificity, and vendor lock-in

In software development vendor contexts, asset specificity is commonly thought to lead to vendor lock-in. But asset specificity in the context of software development is not one thing. It could involve specific functional assets, specific knowledge assets, and specific technical assets. Based on Transaction cost economics (TCE) and IT outsourcing literature, we theorize about the ways that different forms of software development asset specificity interact to influence lock-in in software vendor relationships. We develop three hypotheses about (1) the moderating effect of knowledge asset specificity on the relationship between functional asset specificity and lock-in; (2) the moderating effect of technical asset specificity on the relationship between functional asset specificity and lock-in; and (3) the moderating effect of software popularity on the relationship between knowledge asset specificity and lock-in.