The Effect of Organizational Factors on the Business Value of IT: Universalistic, Contingency, and Configurational Predictions

Abstract

The authors seek to expand the scope of theoretical approaches and organizational factors that are used in concert to examine the effect of organizational factors on IT business value in the present study. They explore the relationships among IT infrastructure capability, a set of five organizational factors, and IT business value using three dominant approaches in organizational research: the universalistic, contingency, and configurational approaches. The ensuing predictions are empirically tested through interviews with senior executives in 57 organizations.

Keywords:

• IT business value
• organizational factors
• IT infrastructure capability
• fit
• contingency theory
• configurational theory