IT capabilities and firm performance: A contingency analysis of the role of industry and IT capability type

Previous empirical studies examining the relationship between IT capability and accounting-based measures of firm performance reported mixed results. We argued that prior work has relied on aggregate overall measures of the firm's IT capability, ignoring the specific type and nature of IT capability; and also has not fully considered important environmental conditions that influence the relationship. Drawing on a resource-based view, we advanced a contingency perspective and proposed that IT capabilities’ impact on firm resources was contingent on the “fit” between the type of IT capability/resource a firm possesses and the demands of the industry in which it competes. Specifically, using publicly available rankings as proxies for two types of IT capabilities (internally and externally focused), we empirically examined the degree to which three industry characteristics (dynamism, munificence, and complexity) influenced the impact of each type of IT capability on measures of financial performance. After controlling for prior performance, we found there was general support for the posited contingency model. The implications of these findings are also discussed.     

Firm-level benefits of IT-enabled resources: A conceptual extension and an empirical assessment

While the business value of IT (BVIT) is central to the IS discipline, only recently a possible chain of causation from IT assets (i.e., fungible, widely available, commodity-like, technology-based products) to firm performance has been conceptually specified. Furthermore, little empirical evidence exists regarding IT assets’ business value. In light of this paucity, this paper makes several contributions to IS research and practice. First, it advances the BVIT literature by empirically testing a model that traces a path from IT assets through IT-enabled resources to firm performance. Second, it extends the BVIT and resource-based view (RBV) literatures by explicating and testing the impact of a firm’s external environment on its IT-enabled resources. Third, it builds on recent literature to argue for, and test, two distinct forms of firm-level outcome: operational and strategic benefits. Finally, the paper contributes to managers’ and IS practitioners’ knowledge by demonstrating the transformative capacity of IT assets on the strategic potential of organizational resources. Empirically, the paper develops and employs valid and reliable scales to test the research model using survey data on IT-enabled customer service departments. The findings demonstrate that when an IT asset is combined with an organizational resource, the extent of synergy borne out of the resulting relationship can positively impact the strategic potential of the ensuing IT-enabled resource. This IT-enabled resource, in turn, is positively associated with firm-level benefits. Further, the external environment is shown to exert a positive effect on the strategic potential of outside-in IT-enabled resources. In sum, this paper offers several important conceptual and empirical contributions to a stream of research that is at the core of the IS discipline.     

Implications for strategic IS research of the resource-based theory of the firm: A reflection

This paper reviews key concepts from the resource-based theory (RBT) of the firm, including evidence of “empirical support” for RBT. However, the paper then turns the conventional logic of empirical testing of RBT on its head, and argues that all that empirical testing does is to show researchers’ success in identifying valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable (VRIN) resources. Examining the IS literature from this perspective, the paper identifies a number of resources that really do seem to have been sources of competitive advantage. It concludes with recommendations on how RBT should be used in future strategic IS research.     

Strategic dependence on the IT resource and outsourcing: A test of the strategic control model

Using resource dependency theory (RDT), this research analyzes how organizations control their information technology resources to improve organizational performance. According to RDT, organizations must manage their dependency on external organizations and limit external dependencies when resources are considered critical. The current study proposes and tests a portion of a Strategic Control Model positing that managers seek to control important, strategic resources in order to create value for the firm and to avoid dependency on external entities. Utilizing a research design that captured extensive quantitative data on the control of IT functions and services, the research team gathered 5 years of data on 54 business units (BUs) in 27 global companies located in seven countries. Study examined the linkages of these 54 BUs to firm performance. Locating the Extent of Control within the firm in cases where the firm depends on IT as a strategic resource proves to be a good explanation for effective decisions leading to higher performance. Viewing IT as a strategic resource alone does not lead to positive business unit outcomes, but the moderating influence of Extent of Control is found to establish the complex statistical relationship with business unit performance. For these reasons, it is critical that a theoretically grounded firm-wide process for decisions on locating IT control is in place to capture business value.

Enabling firm performance through business intelligence and analytics: A dynamic capabilities perspective

This study draws on the sense-seize-transform view of dynamic capabilities as the theoretical lens for examining the role of BI&A in organizations. It views BI&A as the sensing and seizing components of dynamic capabilities that contribute to firm performance by enabling business process change. Findings confirm a positive relationship between BI&A and performance, mediated by business process change capabilities. This study answers the call for a theoretically grounded examination of the relationship between BI&A and firm performance by highlighting the significance of the BI&A seizing capabilities, and the importance of business process change in translating BI&A output into improved performance.     

Explaining IT governance disclosure through the constructs of IT governance maturity and IT strategic role

This study investigates the relation between the maturity of IT governance processes and the IT governance disclosure of firms. Furthermore, it examines whether the strategic role of IT in an industry induces systematic variation in IT governance disclosure. Based on a content analysis of annual reports and a field survey on the maturity of the implementation of COBIT processes, the results demonstrate a role of IT governance frameworks in stimulating accountability and transparency via enhanced external reporting of relevant IT information to external stakeholders, in particular in settings where the strategic role of IT is high.     

The impact of the frequency of usage of IT artifacts on predevelopment performance in the NPD process

Responses from 152 managers from a wide range of industries were used to test a conceptual model examining the influence of information technology (IT) and non-IT resources on IT capabilities and their subsequent effects on predevelopment stage outcomes. It was found that the resources of IT infrastructure, IT embeddedness, firm's outward focus, and competitive intensity have varied effects on the frequency of usage of general-purpose and collaborative IT artifacts. Firms with higher levels of usage of collaborative artifacts in their NPD process have improved predevelopment stage performance, including the number of generated concepts and prototypes, and more efficient new product development (NPD) team collaboration.     

The IT Value Hierarchy: Using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a Metaphor for Gauging the Maturity Level of Information Technology Use within Competitive Organizations

The purpose of this paper is to present a hierarchy of progressive IT maturity using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a metaphor for articulating the increasing value that can be derived by the application of Information Technology within competitive organizations. The authors refer to this maturity model as the IT Value Hierarchy. Each level of the IT Value Hierarchy is described using examples and comparisons to Maslow's Hierarchy. The model can be used by IT executives as a framework for better explaining and discussing the value of increasingly sophisticated Information Technology use within the enterprise.     

Closing the loop: Empirical evidence for a positive feedback model of IT business value creation

Researchers have established that information technology (IT) can improve firms’ productivity. Whether improved productivity leads to additional investment in IT, however, remains largely uninvestigated. In this paper, we consider whether the relationship between productivity and subsequent IT investment might be positive, negative, or ad hoc, and hypothesize that this relationship is positive. We analyze seven years of panel data from 1236 healthcare firms and present empirical evidence supporting our hypothesis. When our finding is combined with extant research, it becomes reasonable to propose that unidirectional causality does not fully describe the process of IT business value creation. Instead, we argue that existing static models of IT business value with unidirectional causality can be recast as dynamic models that explicitly incorporate multiple time periods and a positive feedback relationship to more accurately capture the complexity of this process. The creation of IT business value can thus be understood as a positive feedback model where IT investment in a given time period builds the stock of IT inputs, where those IT inputs then impact productivity, and where productivity leads to IT investment in a future time period, beginning the cycle anew.     

The Impact of Communication between CEOs and CIOs on their Shared Views of the Current and Future Role of IT

This research compares the views of CEOs and CIOs in the same organizations about the relative richness of four communications media (face-to-face, e-mail, business memo, telephone), and the current and future roles of IT in their organizations. Overall, CEOs are found to be more optimistic about the expected impacts of future IT projects. Organizations in which there was greater shared vision about the future role of IT also reported more frequent CEO/CIO communications utilizing communications channels perceived to be richer: face-to-face and e-mail.     

浅谈软件项目人力资源管理的重要性

随着科学技术的进步与知识经济的发展,现代企业的核心竞争力往往是由企业所拥有的人力资源决定,在软件开发这样的行业当中,人才的作用更是显得关键。本文通过对IT项目人力资源管理的详细阐述,论证软件项目人力资源管理在促进我国知识与经济发展中的重要性。     

The impact of electronic markets: the case of the Dutch Flower Auctions

The concept of electronic markets has been widely researched. There is, however, less experience with its operation and even less with the organisational impact that electronic markets can have on specific companies and sectors. This case study discusses a very specific market which is gradually moving into the electronic age: the Dutch Flower Auction. This auction is the world marketplace for flowers and pot plants. This case is unusual both in terms of industry (agriculture) and the specific nature of the goods dealt with (highly perishable and fragile, where quality is based on perception). This study, therefore, has been particularly revealing for the use of electronic markets as a strategic response in a changing marketplace.     

浅析信息化教育环境下，高校教师如何提高教学质量

随着信息技术教育在高校的深入发展,教学质量受到进一步的关注,该文探讨了在高校信息技术教育背号下,作为教师,应该如何提高教学质量。     

Study of the performance of multi-behaviour agents for supply chain planning

In today's industrial context, competitiveness is closely associated to supply chain performance. Coordination between business units is essential to increase this performance, in order to produce and deliver products on time to customers, at a competitive price. While planning systems usually follow a single straightforward production planning process, this paper proposes that partners adapt together their local planning process (i.e. planning behaviours) to the different situations met in the supply chain environment. Because each partner can choose different behaviour and all behaviours will have an impact on the overall performance, it is difficult to know which is preferable for each partner to increase their performance. Using agent-based technology, simulation experiments have been undertaken to verify if multi-behaviour planning agents who can change planning behaviours to adapt to their environment can increase supply chain performance. These agents have been implemented in an agent-based planning platform, using a case study illustrating a lumber supply chain. The performance analysis shows that advanced planning systems can take advantage of using multiple planning processes, because of the dynamic context of supply chains.     

Impact of the shape of demand distribution in decision models for operations management

Decision support tools are increasingly used in operations where key decision inputs such as demand, quality, or costs are uncertain. Often such uncertainties are modeled with probability distributions, but very little attention is given to the shape of the distributions. For example, state-of-the-art planning systems have weak, if any, capabilities to account for the distribution shape. We consider demand uncertainties of different shapes and show that the shape can considerably change the optimal decision recommendations of decision models. Inspired by discussions with a leading consumer electronics manufacturer, we analyze how four plausible demand distributions affect three representative decision models that can be employed in support of inventory management, supply contract selection and capacity planning decisions. It is found, for example, that in supply contracts flexibility is much more appreciated if demand is negatively skewed, i.e., has downside potential, compared to positively skewed demand. We then analyze the value of distributional information in the light of these models to find out how the scope of improvement actions that aim to decrease demand uncertainty vary depending on the decision to be made. Based on the results, we present guidelines for effective utilization of probability distributions in decision models for operations management.     

Role of Universities in IT Education in India

In the wake of the information technology (IT) revolution, the paper describes the changing role of universities to promote IT education in India to generate qualitative and competitive manpower in the face of the mushrooming of private institutions in the field of IT. The rapid growth of private teaching initiatives reflects inadequacies of the public educational system to the needs of the emerging IT environment, especially considering the high prices charged by private training. It is pointed out that the emerging knowledge society and the economy are not going to be based on IT alone, but will depend on the development of both IT and basic research in domain areas. Any policy on IT education should ensure that basic disciplines are not ignored. Universities should develop new and innovative programmes for students from different basic disciplines to give training for high-end jobs. To promote IT education a new innovative concept of earning while learning has recently been introduced. Some of the initiatives started by Delhi University to modify/improve course programmes for IT education are highlighted, looking at the needs of the industry.     

Information sharing and business systems leveraging in supply chains: An empirical investigation of one web-based application

Web-based supply chain applications promise to provide information sharing capabilities that will enhance the participating organizations’ information capabilities and business benefits. We performed an empirical study of a sophisticated Web-based supply chain application to determine the effect of such information sharing and business systems leveraging on business benefits. We also examined the importance of relational concurrence (i.e., shared business interests among supply chain partners), as an antecedent to both information sharing and business systems leveraging. Our work showed that both information sharing and business system leveraging provided important business benefits and that relational concurrence was only marginally related to information sharing and not at all related to business systems leveraging, limiting the significance attributed to this factor in prior research on inter-organizational systems.     

析户外广告对城市形象视觉重构的作用

户外广告对于城市形象的视觉重构具有重要作用,能帮助传播城市形象,因此要对户外广告进行从内容到形式的控制规划,构建其有独特魅力和个性的城市视觉形象。     

数据采集片上系统动态性能测试的新方法

提出一种新的方法用于高精度数据采集片上系统的动态性能测试。该方法利用高维空间几何矢量投影的思想,将正弦响应信号向由其各次谐波组成的正交基投影来拟合测试数据,以残差的负熵作为拟合结束的判据,使残差最大限度接近白噪声,避免了传统以残差最小为判据的过拟合问题。实验证明了该方法的有效性。