Designing a Service Level Agreement Model Using Grounded Theory

A service level agreement is a commitment between the service provider and customer in which certain aspects of services, quality, availability, and responsibilities are agreed upon between the service provider and service user. The purpose of this research is to design the service level agreement model using the database theory. This research was conducted based on rounded theory and a qualitative-quantitative approach. The method of data collection in the qualitative section was an in-depth interview and the interview texts were analyzed in three stages open, central, and selective coding. Atlas software was used for data analysis. The sampling method was snowball type, which was achieved by conducting a total of 16 interviews with experts in the field of information and communication technology. In the quantitative part, the statistical population of knowledge-based companies active in the field of information and communication technology was determined, and based on confirmatory factor analysis, a sample size of 120 people was selected. For the quantitative validation of the model, the structural equation modeling method was used. In the qualitative part, determining the causal factors, background, strategy, intervention, and consequences of designing the service level agreement model was done.In the quantitative part, the effect of causal conditions on the main phenomenon is equal to 0.662, the effect of the main phenomenon on the strategy is equal to 0.428, the effect of background conditions on the strategy is equal to 0.551, the effect of intervening conditions on the strategy is equal to 0.408 and the impact of the strategy on the outcome was calculated as 0.639. In the qualitative part, the research resulted in the design of a new service level agreement model based on data theory, and in the quantitative part, the significance and standard coefficient of the model components were confirmed. Keywords: service level agreement model, database theory, customer, service.