IT SUBSIDIARY AS STRATEGIC ALTERNATIVE FOR TRANSACTION COST ECONOMICS

This article aims to analyze how an IT subsidiary can contribute to the economy of transaction costs of a multinational financial group. To better understand these relationships and identify whether there are savings in transaction costs, a case study was conducted. Its purpose was to seek evidence of the five dimensions of the theory of transaction costs: opportunism, bounded rationality, uncertainty, asset specificity and transaction frequency. The data used for the study was obtained by means of documentary and bibliographical research and interviews with employees from both organizations involved. The results of this study demonstrate that the capacity of centralization of information, so as to develop skills to innovate or the customization of the services provided by the parent company, was one of the factors that led to the maintenance of their own IT structure. In addition, due to behavioral assumptions, the characteristics of the transactions and the assets involved, maintaining an integrated IT structure in the hierarchical dimension in the form of a subsidiary, can guarantee savings in transaction costs for the main organization. The results confirm the principles of the Theory of Transaction Costs.