Knowledge that Transforms

Information sytems are strategic business tools, frequently essential to a firm and central to its competitive strategy. Their importance is now acknowledged. But information technology-equipment and services—is available to all firms, and most applications can be duplicated. The copying firm often enjoys the advantages of newer and better technology, learns from the experience of the innovator, and thus can offer comparable services at lower costs. When can an information technology-based strategy confer sustainable competitive advantage? The answer may lie with the role of strategic resources in explaining the allocation of economic benefits from an IT innovation. Specifically, information technology can lead to sustainable competitive advantage when it is used to leverage differences in strategic resources. This may be true even in cases where duplication is relatively easy and there are few dynamic effects, like first-mover advantages, to protect the innovation. An important characteristic of IT is its ability to manage interactions among economic activities; economic theory can be used to establish a link between this characteristic of IT and shifts in resource values. This allows us to identify and examine some opportunities for deploying IT to leverage structural resource differences among firms, including differences in vertical integration and diversification as well as differences in the quality and organization of key resources.

Information systems can serve as intermediaries between the buyers and the sellers in a vertical market, thus creating an “electronic marketplace. ” A major impact of these electronic market systems is that they typically reduce the search costs buyers must pay to obtain information about the prices and product offerings available in the market. Economic theory suggests that this reduction in search costs plays a major role in determining the implications of these systems for market efficiency and competitive behavior. This article draws on economic models of search and examines how prices, seller profits, and buyer welfare are affected by reducing search costs in commodity and differentiated markets. This reduction results in direct efficiency gains from reduced intermediation costs and in indirect but possibly larger gains in allocational efficiency from better-informed buyers. Because electronic market systems generally reduce buyers’ search costs, they ultimately increase the efficiency of interorganizational transactions, in the process affecting the market power of buyers and sellers. The economic characteristics of electronic marketplaces, in addition to their ability to reduce search costs, create numerous possibilities for the strategic use of these systems.

The career orientations of employees can have important implications for their job satisfaction, commitment, and retention within organizations. However, there is little empirical research on the correlates of career orientations held by managers and professionals in the MIS field. This study sought to address this gap in the literature and assessed the career orientations of 464 MIS employees, as well as their relationship with selected demographic characteristics, job type, and career outcomes. The most prevalent career orientations of MIS employees were found to be technical and managerial. Autonomy and lifestyle orientations were also found to be moderately represented in the sample. Women were more lifestyle oriented and less technically oriented than men. In addition, systems programmers, applications programmers, and software engineers tended to be technically oriented, whereas systems analysts, project leaders, and computer managers tended to be managerially oriented. The most significant finding was that employees whose career orientations were compatible with their job setting reported high job satisfaction, high career satisfaction, strong commitment to their organization, and low intentions to leave their organization. Firms need to recognize the diversity of career orientations so that appropriate reward systems and career paths can be developed. Research on this topic should continue to examine characteristics unique to MIS employees, as well as how these interrelationships change over time at different career stages.

Executive support is often prescribed as critical for fully tapping the benefits of information technology (IT). However, few investigations have attempted to determine what type of executive support is likely or organizationally appropriate. This article puts forward alternative models of executive support. The models are tested by examining chief executive officers’ behaviors in and perceptions of IT activities. CEOs and information systems executives are surveyed and further data collected from industry handbooks and from chairmen’s annual letters to shareholders. The results suggest that executive involvement (a psychological state) is more strongly associated with the firm’s progressive use of IT than executive participation (actual behaviors) in IT activities. Executive involvement is influenced by a CEO’s participation, prevailing organizational conditions, and the executive’s functional background. CEO’s perceptions about the importance of IT in their firms were generally positive, although they participated in IT activities rather infrequently.

This three-round delphi survey of senior IS executives is the third in a series designed to determine the most critical issues in IS management. Analysis focuses on respondents’ assessments of specific issues as well as emerging trends. Key findings include: (1) Continued concern for traditional issues such as strategic planning and organizational alignment; (2) only six of the top issues from 1936 remained in the top 10; (3) one new issue, technology infrastructure, made the top 10; (4) three issues from previous studies rejoined the top 10—IS human resources, software development, and telecommunication systems; and (5) data-related issues now occupy the top two slots. This study reveals two important trends as the field enters the 1990s. First is the rising importance of technology infrastructure issues. Technology infrastructure issues now occupy three of the top 10 slots including the highest position. Second, it appears that internal effectiveness issues have made a strong comeback after being virtually ignored in 1986. IS human resources, software development, and the applications portfolio—issues that make up the core of the IS function—all increased in importance.

Organizations continue to invest heavily in personal computers for their knowledge workers. When use is optional, however, having access to the technology by no means ensures it will be used or used effectively. To help us gain a better understanding of factors that influence the use of personal computers, researchers have recently adapted the theory of reasoned action proposed by Fishbein and Azjen (1975). This study uses a competing theory of behavior proposed by Triandis (1980). Responses were collected from 212 knowledge workers in nine divisions of a multi-national firm, and the measures and research hypotheses were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS). The results show that social norms and three components of expected consequences (complexity of use, fit between the job and PC capabilities, and long-term consequences) have a strong influence on utilization. These findings confirm the importance of the expected consequences of using PC technology, suggesting that training programs and organizational policies could be instituted to enhance or modify these expectations.