How do IT capabilities create strategic value? Toward greater integration of insights from reductionistic and holistic approaches

Lior Fink

European Journal of Information Systems, 2011, vol. 20, issue 1, 16-33

Abstract: After more than two decades of intensive research, researchers are still struggling to explain the strategic value of information technology (IT) capabilities. The current study suggests that sufficient advancement has not been made in this area of research because of the gap between the richness of theoretical formulations and the minimalism of the reductionistic approach taken to test them. While theoretical formulations describe complex relationships between IT capabilities and competitive advantage, reductionistic explanations rely on models that represent the integration of simple relationships. This area of research can, therefore, benefit from the wider adoption of a holistic approach that attributes competitive advantage to profiles of IT capabilities. This study draws on the resource-based view and configurational theory to develop two reductionistic (direct and mediation) and two holistic (gestalt and profile-deviation) models of IT strategic value. The four models are tested with data collected from IT managers. The empirical analysis illustrates the insights that can be gained by drawing on the relative strengths of reductionistic and holistic explanations of IT strategic value.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/ejis.2010.53 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:20:y:2011:i:1:p:16-33

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjis20

DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2010.53

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Information Systems is currently edited by Par Agerfalk

More articles in European Journal of Information Systems from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().