We conceive of information technology (IT) innovation posture-profile misalignment as a condition that exists when a firm's innovation posture (the extent to which a firm leads with IT innovation) does not match up with its innovation resource profile (the firm's stock of resources conducive to effective innovation). We theorize that firms with a posture-profile misalignment will see diminished returns from IT adoption because they will be less likely to possess (and be less effective at exploiting) crucial innovation resources when they need them most. We demonstrate how misalignment conditions the link between IT innovation adoption and organizational performance using a data set comprising electronic networking technologies in over 25,000 U.S. manufacturing plants. Productivity regression estimations reveal a consistent pattern that the association between IT innovation adoption and productivity is substantially diminished among misaligned firms. These empirical results provide initial confirmation of the theoretical value of innovation posture, innovation resource profile, and innovation posture-profile misalignment. We consider the implications for research on business value and innovation as well as for the practice of management.
Prior research at the firm level finds information technology (IT) to be a net substitute for both labor and non-IT capital inputs. However, it is unclear whether these results hold, given recent IT innovations and continued price declines. In this study we extend prior research to examine whether these input relationships have evolved over time. First, we introduce new price indexes to account for varying technological progress across different types of IT hardware. Second, we use the rental price methodology to measure capital in terms of the flow of services provided. Finally, we use hedonic methods to extend our IT measures to 1998, enabling analysis spanning the emergence of the Internet. Analyzing approximately 9,800 observations from over 800 Fortune 1,000 firms for the years 1987-1998, we find firm demand for IT to be elastic for decentralized IT and inelastic for centralized IT. Moreover, Allen Elasticity of Substitution estimates confirm that through labor substitution, the increasing factor share of IT comes at the expense of labor. Last, we identify a complementary relationship between IT and ordinary capital, suggesting an evolution in this relationship as firms have shifted to more decentralized organizational forms. We discuss these results in terms of prior research, suggest areas of future research, and discuss managerial implications.
Human life is dependent upon the natural environment, which, most would agree, is rapidly degrading. Business enterprises are a dominant form of social organization and contribute to the worsening, and enhancement, of the natural environment. Scholars in the administrative sciences examine questions spanning organizations and the natural environment but have largely omitted the information systems perspective. We develop a research agenda on information systems innovation for environmental sustainability that demonstrates the critical role that IS can play in shaping beliefs about the environment, in enabling and transforming sustainable processes and practices in organizations, and in improving environmental and economic performance. The belief--action--outcome (BAO) framework and associated research agenda provide the basis for a new discourse on IS for environmental sustainability