We examine how one industry's productivity is affected by the IT capital of its customers and how this effect depends on industries' relative concentration. These customer-driven IT spillovers result from customers' IT investments in various information systems that reduce transaction costs through information sharing and coordination and lead to more efficient production and logistics upstream. The magnitude of IT spillovers depends on relative industry concentration because customers in more concentrated industries relative to those of their suppliers are better able to retain the benefits from their IT investments. We model customer-driven effects based on production theory and empirically test the model using two industry-level data sets covering different and overlapping time periods (1987-1999 and 1998-2005), different scopes of the economy (manufacturing only versus all industries), and different levels of industry aggregation. We find that, given an increase in a downstream industry's IT capital, there is a significant increase in downstream industry output as well as significant increases in upstream industry output. Moreover, the magnitude of IT spillovers is related to relative industry concentration: A 1% decrease in a customer's relative industry concentration increases spillovers by roughly 1%. Thus, further increases in IT capital can be justified along the supply chain, and an industry's relative concentration-which can reflect market power-in part determines the distribution of productivity benefits.
This study extends existing information technology (IT) productivity research by evaluating the contributions of spending in IT outsourcing using a production function framework and an economy wide panel data set from 60 industries in the United States over the period from 1998 to 2006. Our results demonstrate that IT outsourcing has made a positive and economically meaningful contribution to industry output and labor productivity. It has not only helped industries produce more output, but it has also made their labor more productive. Moreover, our analysis of split data samples reveals systematic differences between high and low IT intensity industries in terms of the degree and impact of IT outsourcing. Our results indicate that high IT intensity industries use more IT outsourcing as a percentage of their output, but less as a percentage of their own IT capital, and they achieve higher returns from IT outsourcing. This finding suggests that to gain greater value from IT outsourcing, firms need to develop IT capabilities by intensively investing in IT themselves. By comparing the results from subperiods and analyzing a separate data set for the earlier period of 1987-1999, we conclude that the value of IT outsourcing has been stable from 1998 to 2006 and consistent over the past two decades. The high returns we find for IT outsourcing also suggest that firms may be underinvesting in IT outsourcing.
Many studies measure the value of information technology (IT) by focusing on how much value is added rather than on the mechanisms that drive value addition. We argue that value from IT arises not only directly through changes in the factor input mix but also indirectly through IT-enabled augmentation of non-IT inputs and changes in the underlying production technology. We develop an augmented form of the Cobb- Douglas production function to separate and measure different productivity-enhancing effects of IT. Using industry-level data from the manufacturing sector, we find evidence that both direct and indirect effects of IT are significant. Partitioning industries into IT-intensive and non-IT-intensive, we find that the indirect effects of IT predominate in the IT-intensive sector. In contrast, the direct effects of IT predominate in the non-IT intensive sector. These results indicate structural differences in the role of IT in production between industries that are IT-intensive and those that are not. The implication for decision-makers is that for IT-intensive industries the gains from IT come primarily through indirect effects such as the augmentation of non-IT capital and labor.
We develop a model based on the theory of incomplete contracts for how ownership structure of interorganizational systems (IOS) can affect information exploitation and information technology adoption. Our model yields several propositions that suggest the appropriate strategic actions that a firm may take when there is potential for IOS adopters to question whether adopting the IOS will be value-maximizing. We analyze and illustrate the related strategic thinking in a real-world context involving a financial risk management IOS. We present a case study of the ownership and spin-off of RiskMetrics, developed by New York City--based investment bank, J.P. Morgan, in the late 1980s. The firm first gave RiskMetrics to its correspondent banking, treasury, and investment clients for free, in the context of its clearing account relationship services. Later, the bank spun off the product to an independent company that offered fee-based services. We model the bank's clients in terms of their heterogeneous portfolio risks, and their effects on the value a client can gain from adopting the technology. We also examine the value they may lose if their private portfolio risk information is exploited. A key roadblock to the adoption of the free service may have been the potential for strategic information exploitation by the service provider. When Morgan spun off RiskMetrics with multiparty ownership, wider adoption occurred. Our theory interprets this strategic move as an appropriate means to maximize long-term profits when information exploitation may occur.
The most difficult challenge facing a market leader is maintaining its leading position. This is especially true in information technology and telecommunications industries, where multiple product generations and rapid technological evolution continually test the ability of the incumbent to stay ahead of potential entrants. In these industries, an incumbent often protects its position by launching prematurely to retain its leadership. Entry, however, happens relatively frequently. We identify conditions under which an entrant will launch a next generation product thereby preventing the incumbent from employing a protection strategy. We define a capabilities advantage as the ability to develop and launch a next generation product at a lower cost than a competitor, and a product with a greater market response is one with greater profit flows. Using these definitions, we find that an incumbent with a capabilities advantage in one next generation product can be overtaken by an entrant with a capabilities advantage in another next generation product only if the entrant's capabilities advantage is in a disruptive technology that yields a product with a greater market response. This can occur even though both next generation products are available to both firms. We also show that the competition may require the launching firm to lose money at the margin on the next generation product.
In distributed operations with positive externalities between branches, local underinvestment occurs because one branch does not account for the impact of its actions on other branches. Previous work found that an IT-enabled incentive mechanism called "ownership of customers" (OoC) reduced the problem of local underinvestment by accounting for inter-branch transactions. This report examines the impact of including investment by a central office on the set of previously developed results for local investment by branches. It shows that ownership of customers can reduce the problem of both central and local underinvestment. It also demonstrates how central investment can yield second-best levels of profitability-optimal profits given contracting problems in local investment with branches. It highlights how charging branches a unit fee to fund the needed level of central investment is consistent with that second-best solution.
We employ the theory of incomplete contracts to examine the relationship between ownership and investment in electronic networks such as the Internet and interorganizational information systems. Electronic networks represent an institutional structure that has resulted from the introduction of information technology in industrial and consumer markets. Ownership of electronic networks is important because it affects the level of network-specific investments, which in turn determine the profitability, and in some cases the viability, of these networks. In our analysis we define an electronic network as a set of participants and a portfolio of assets. The salient concept in this perspective is the degree to which network participants are indispensable in making network assets productive. We derive three main results. First, if one or more assets are essential to all network participants, then all the assets should be owned together. Second, participants that are indispensable to an asset essential to all participants should own all network assets. Third and most important, in the absence of an indispensable participant, and as long as the cooperation of at least two participants is necessary to create value, sole ownership is never the best form of ownership for an electronic network. This latter result implies that as the leading network participants become more dispensable, we should see an evolution toward forms of joint ownership.
This study evaluates the extent to which the added value to customers from a supplier's application of information technology (IT) is manifested through premium prices of a traded good. The study demonstrates that IT can add value to an otherwise undifferentiated good and shows how these benefits accrue to customers from the adoption of IT. Analyzing a case in which the traded good is a homogeneous commodity-commercial fueling-our study shows that the critical impacts of IT are convenience and control -- that is, convenience that provides improved access to fuel and control that reduces problems of delegating purchasing authority for the customer. The value of this additional service is exhibited in premium prices customers are willing to pay for the IT- enhanced traded good, relative to the same good without IT. Compared to the price without IT, statistical analysis of the supplier's pricing history demonstrates that the application of IT to commercial fuel yielded price premiums of between five and 12 percent of the retail fuel price.