Organizational Assimilation Capacity and IT Business Value

Author(s):  
Vincenzo Morabito ◽  
Gianluigi Viscusi

IT business value represents important outcomes in firms (Banker & Kauffman, 2004; Gable, Darshana, & Chan, 2003; Ravichandran & Chalermsak Lertwongsatien, 2005) whereas information systems (IS) integration represents a relevant amount of the IT spending. Notwithstanding, while most firms are making major investments in information technology, particularly in information systems integration (e.g., ERP and data warehouse solutions), not all of them apply IT effectively in their business activities (Brynjolfsson, McAfee, Zhu, & Sorell, 2006; Dehning & Stratopoulos, 2003; Jason, Vijay, & Kenneth, 2003) obtaining IT business value and organizational competitive advantage. This research is based on an integrative model of IT business value, aiming to evaluate the mediating effect of an “IT organizational assimilation capacity” between IS integration and organization competitive advantage. Taking into account the theoretical premises that IT business value is generated by the exploitation of both IT and organizational resources, we develop a research model and propose two research hypotheses. The model and the related hypotheses are based on a large-scale sample survey (Francalanci & Morabito, 2006). The responses were obtained from 466 CIOs and senior business executives, who were members of the firms’ top management teams in Italian companies.

Author(s):  
Janusch Patas ◽  
Jens Bartenschlager ◽  
Matthias Goeken

Recently, the Resource-based View (RBV) attracts more attention in IT business value research, as it serves as a theoretical framework for the identification of IT resources impacting firm performance. Although numerous empirical studies applying the RBV can be found, systematic research structuring the obtained knowledge is hardly available. Therefore, the authors conduct an evidence-based literature review to structure and consolidate empirical evidence from studies using the RBV as a theoretical foundation. The authors illustrate how different IT resources can be distinguished and classified by considering their operationalization. With the means of a research map, they illustrate the findings and evidence, pointing out contradictory results of how different classes of IT resources affect the IT business value in terms of the competitive advantage. The authors then discuss direct effects of IT resources on the competitive advantage as well as research gaps. Finally, they present implications regarding the RBV in IT business value research.


Author(s):  
Gareth Griffiths ◽  
Ray Hackney

This chapter describes three critically important features for the planning, sustainability and implementation of strategic information systems (SIS). The literature identifies a consistent lack of success by organisations in achieving business benefits from their SIS investments and in particular the difficulties of obtaining a sustained competitive advantage over rivals. There appears to be little evidence that this record has improved as organisations increasingly rely on SIS to support their business strategy. The chapter focuses upon the need for appropriate SIS planning, the role of unique, causally ambiguous ‘isolating mechanisms’ in order to sustain SIS-derived competitive advantages and concludes by summarising the implementation factors deemed to be of real practical importance for the success of large-scale SIS projects based upon recent empirical research. The high failure rate of SIS applications in business is deemed to be largely of a managerial rather than a technical causation (Earl, 1989;Burn, 1993; Galliers et al., 1994;Barnett and Burgelman, 1996; Powell and Dent-Micallef 1997; Willcocks and Lester 1999; Watson et al., 2000). This chapter identifies and considers three components which are critical in this respect to enable an IT strategy fusion with the rest of the business (Papp, 1998).


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theophanis C. Stratopoulos

ABSTRACT Motivated by the study of Reinking et al. (2015), the study proposes a due diligence process for future studies aiming to investigate the duration of competitive advantage due to emerging technology adoption. The proposed process is based on the following premise: Predictions related to rate of adoption are useful to IT business value researchers because technology adoption remains a potential source of competitive advantage until adoption rate has reached approximately 50 percent. Based on a comparison of two technologies (ERP and e-commerce), the study provides the following three recommendations for researchers interested in productivity and financial performance-related payoffs due to emerging technology adoption: (1) apply the resource-based view analysis on the emerging technology to see if the duration of competitive advantage is worth exploring; (2) leverage the synthesis done by Stratopoulos (2016) to develop an a priori testable benchmark duration; and (3) contrast adopters with a matched sample of non-adopters or late adopters to establish a duration advantage.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
pp. 1250005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishnu Vinekar ◽  
James T. C. Teng

This paper tests a primary postulate of the Resource-Based View (RBV) of Information Technology (IT) business value. From this perspective, IT is not rare but pervasive, and it is only the combination of investments with other resources that makes the investment inimitable. Therefore, the effect of IT on firm performance cannot be direct effects, but rather firm performance can only be affected when IT expenditures are combined with other investments. This study tests this theory using panel data of large firms spanning seven years. Firm-level data is gathered from Compustat and matched to Information Systems (IS) Budget data. The results do not support the RBV postulate that IT Expenditure cannot have direct competitive advantage but must be combined with expenditure on other assets to effect firm performance. Instead, the results support the opposing hypotheses: IT expenditure and capital expenditures have independent, direct effects on firm revenue as well as firm profit, even in the presence of the interaction variable. The results imply that IT investments may be a source of direct competitive advantage, unlike the postulate of the RBV theorists. This may be because an IT system has embedded knowledge and creates knowledge, making it rare and imperfectly imitable. Rather than investing in generic IT systems and trying to obtain uniqueness from investments in complementary resources, firms can try embedding firm-specific knowledge when designing or modifying their systems and using their systems to create knowledge. This is the first study to test the RBV postulate that value from IT comes only with the combination of IT investments and investments in other assets and not from direct effects. By disproving this postulate, this study opens the door to new hypotheses based on knowledge in and from IT systems.


Author(s):  
Charlotte P. Lee ◽  
Kjeld Schmidt

The study of computing infrastructures has grown significantly due to the rapid proliferation and ubiquity of large-scale IT-based installations. At the same time, recognition has also grown of the usefulness of such studies as a means for understanding computing infrastructures as material complements of practical action. Subsequently the concept of “infrastructure” (or “information infrastructures,” “cyberinfrastructures,” and “infrastructuring”) has gained increasing importance in the area of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) as well as in neighboring areas such as Information Systems research (IS) and Science and Technology Studies (STS). However, as such studies have unfolded, the very concept of “infrastructure” is being applied in different discourses, for different purposes, in myriad different senses. Consequently, the concept of “infrastructure” has become increasingly muddled and needs clarification. The chapter presents a critical investigation of the vicissitudes of the concept of “infrastructure” over the last 35 years.


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