A Role-based Typology of Information Technology: Model Development and Assessment

Abstract

Managers aim to explain how and why IT creates business value, recognize their IT-based capabilities, and select the appropriate IT to enhance and leverage those capabilities. This article synthesizes the Organizational Information Processing Theory and Resource-Based View into a descriptive typology of IT roles. On the basis of these roles, the core features and functions of IT resources can be analyzed and linked to business objectives. Implications and areas for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• classification typology
• IT business value
• IT roles
• qualitative interview
• resource based view

Notes

1. Due to space constraints, the interview protocol, interview questions, and codes are not reported in this article. However, they can be made accessible upon request.

2. Both of these theories have been proven to be useful in examining the IT resource of the firm, as indicated by previous seminal studies such as Gattiker and Goodhue (2005) and Melville et al. (2004).

3. A detailed review of IT roles, with a separate treatment of each particular literature source, is not presented in this article due to space constraints. This background document is available upon request.

4. “IT was primarily used to automate existing operations and to increase the speed of communication. Automation within organizational functions meant that routine information collection and storage tasks were taken over by IT, replacing paper and people with electrons, without fundamentally changing the way work was done” (Zammuto, Griffith, Majchrzak, Dougherty, & Faraj, 2007).

5. Response-lag drivers are structural determinants and characteristics of the firm and its technological endowment that contribute to raise and strengthen barriers to erosion and thus delay or deny imitation by competitors or new industry entrants (Piccoli & Ives, 2005).

6. Accordingly, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) might be a more illustrative term than IT to capture these two basic roles.

7. For other examples, see Smith and Fingar (2003).

8. Three respondents recommended collaboration, optimization, and reconfiguration roles to be integrated in the model. Their recommendations led us to broaden somehow our initial definitions of the roles in order to capture these concepts by the primary seven roles of IT we have identified. The present definitions of IT roles encompass these notions.

9. Efficiency improvement and collaboration enhancement were the two most cited intermediate effects in the course of interviews, while productivity increase and cost reduction were the two highly referred high-level effects of IT.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fardad Zand

Fardad Zand is an assistant professor at the Technology, Strategy and Entrepreneurship Department of Delft University of Technology. He is affiliated with the MIT Center for Digital Business in Cambridge, USA. He holds two BCs (with honors) in Chemical Engineering and Computer Science, a MSc (with honors) in Management of Technology, and a PhD (with honors) in Information Economics. His work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Production Innovation Management (JPIM). His research has also earned him two best paper awards from the International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA) Conference and the International Management Conference (IMC).

Sam Solaimani

Sam Solaimani is an assistant professor at Nyenrode Business School. He is also affiliated with the Haas School of Business in Berkeley. Sam holds a PhD on Business Model Innovation and Analysis from Delft University of Technology, a MSc on Business Information Systems (with honors), and a BSc on Information Science. Currently, his research focuses on Business Model Innovation, Innovation Management, and Lean philosophy. He has more than 20 academic peer-reviewed publications, some of which have recently appeared in the Business Process Management Journal (BMPJ), Electronic Markets (EM), and Information Systems Frontiers (ISF).

Cees van Beers

Cees van Beers is Professor of Innovation Management at Delft University of Technology. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Free University of Amsterdam and the Tinbergen Institute. His main research focus is on the impact of IT investments on firm productivity and innovation output, IT business value, organizational complementarities, determinants of R&D collaboration, innovative behavior of firms, external knowledge spillovers, government policy failures, and sustainable energy innovations. His work has appeared in journals such as Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change, Small Business Economics, Ecological Economics, Ambio, Review of World Economics, and Kyklos.