Service level agreements (SLAs) have been touted as the solution to a bevy of IT woes: the difficulty of building IT-business partnerships, the inability to achieve strategic alignment, the lack of clear IT requirements, the discord associated with IT chargeback, and the elusiveness of metrics for IT performance. Despite this publicity, there are relatively few examples of sustained success in deploying SLAs in organizations. This panel will examine from both theoretical and practical perspectives the recent implementation of service level agreements at Texas Instruments, Inc.(TI), a large global manufacturer of semiconductors and related products. The format for doing so is a “cross-fire” discussion similar to that used in Harvard Business Review case studies, in which a situation is introduced and then analyzed by several people, each from his or her particular point of view.

The objective of the panel is twofold. First, it will demonstrate how multiple theoretical and practical perspectives can inform managerial action and provide a rich understanding of organizational phenomena. Second, it will apply two specific theories (partnership and transfer pricing) to a particular management initiative (the implementation of service level agreements) in order to explain observed outcomes in a specific case and to draw lessons for similar efforts at other firms.