【论文信息】

Tang G F, Liu X X*. Optimal Design and Selection of Software Outsourcing Contracts in the Presence of Bilateral Moral Hazard [J]. Managerial and Decision Economics (ABS二星期刊). 2025, 0: 1-23.https://doi.org/10.1002/mde.4499.

【作者信息】

第一作者/通讯作者：唐国锋，博士、副教授、硕士生导师，研究方向：信息服务外包、机制设计；

第二作者：刘星星，2022级管理科学与工程专业硕士研究生、2025级重庆大学在读博士研究生，研究方向：信息服务外包、机制设计。

【基金支持】

重庆市教委科学技术重点项目(KJZD-K202300804);重庆市教委人文社科规划项目(23SKGH166);重庆市社科规划项目(2023NDYB68)等。

【论文摘要】

In the realm of software outsourcing, client participation throughout the software development lifecycle is of paramount importance in determining the success rate of projects, and effective collaboration between clients and software developers is crucial for improving project quality; however, the privacy surrounding their efforts often leads to bilateral moral hazard challenges, so to address these complex issues, this study employs the Nash bargaining game theory to construct a theoretical analysis framework for the design and selection of performance-based contracts and time-and-materials contracts, the research finds that comparing the cost-efficiency parameters and effort elasticity coefficients of both clients and developers can reveal the relative magnitude of their respective effort levels, furthermore, the reward coefficients in both types of contracts are closely related to the software developer's cost of fixing bugs, the client's sensitivity to bugs, and debugging time, and additionally, the reward coefficient in time-and-materials contracts is also influenced by the software developer's effort costs, while through comparative static analysis, the study further discovers that if clients are generally sensitive to software bugs, performance-based contracts exhibit better incentive effects than time-and-materials contracts, and if clients are highly sensitive to software bugs, time-and-materials contracts are preferable to performance-based contracts.