The effect of information technology on IT-facilitated coordination, IT-facilitated autonomy, and decision-makings at the individual level

ABSTRACT

The effect of information technology (IT) has been a central concern to economics of IT ever since it has been viewed as an important resource to improve firm productivity. Although significant research progress has been made on the impacts of IT use at the individual level, the mechanism of how IT use increases individual performance at work has not been fully explored. In an attempt to examine the IT effects on performance, we focus on individual work productivity gained from IT use. Following the discussion of previous works, we develop a research model, describing that the ubiquitous IT transforms the way individual employers’ work in organizations, and facilitates working processes and practices that may affect the decision-making of individual performance.

As a result of testing the research model, we found not only that IT use does have a direct effect on the quality of decision-making in organizations, but that this effect is partially mediated by the extent of IT-facilitated autonomy and of IT-facilitated coordination. These findings suggest that the effects of IT use on decision-makings in an organization may be attributed, in part, to its beneficial use in coordination and tendency to foster more discretion.

KEYWORDS:

• IT Productivity
• IT use on the job
• IT-facilitated coordination
• IT-facilitated autonomy
• decision-making quality

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• O33
• O30

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ To reconfirm the mediation effect of IT-enabled coordination, we additionally conducted the Sobel Test (Sobel 1982) by using statistics obtained from PLS (IT use→Decision-making quality, without Coordination in the model [b = .602, p < .01], IT use→Coordination [b = .547, S.E. = .054], Coordination→Decision-making quality [b = .502, S.E. = .060]. The calculated Sobel test statistic was 6.43 (p < .01), suggesting partial mediation effect of coordination between IT use and decision-making quality. We also found partial mediation effect of autonomy on the relationship between IT use and decision-making quality, using Sobel test (CIU→Autonomy [b = .438, S.E. = .0578], Autonomy→Decision-making quality [b = .533, S.E. = .0581]. The calculated Sobel test statistic was 5.84 (p < .01).