Identification and ranking of effective criteria in evaluating resilient IT project contractors

The increasing growth of information and communication technologies along with the extensive reliance of today's organizations and businesses on these technologies have rendered decisions on how to outsource the implementation of information system (IS) as well as information technology (IT) projects. Besides, the selection of competent contractors for IS/IT projects is one of the most crucial issues with which organizations must deal. Therefore, numerous researchers have conducted studies in this regard. However, because of the expanded and intensive inter-organizational interactions and inevitable disruptions, there is a need that evaluation criteria and methods of contractor selection be revised or completed. Resiliency, therefore, as the ability to minimize the adverse impact of disruptions and maximize the ability to recover from them, should be afforded further attention. To this end, by reviewing the existing literature on contractor evaluation and some researches on the subject of resiliency, as well as through interviewing a number of experts, the present study collected a set of relevant criteria. Afterward, with the idea of having the evaluation of contractors be more specifically indicative of their resilience, a revised categorization of the criteria was proposed, then screened and approved by experts. Finally, using the Best Worst Method (BWM), the weight and significance of the criteria were determined.