Sustaining IT Advantage: The Role of Structural Differences.

Author List: Clemons, Eric K.; Row, Michael C.;
MIS Quarterly, 1991, Volume 15, Issue 3, Page 275-292.
Information systems are strategic business tools, frequently essential to a firm and central to its competitive strategy. Their importance is now acknowledged. But information technology--equipment and services--is available to all firms, and most applications can be duplicated. The copying firm often enjoys the advantages of newer and better technology, learns from the experience of the innovator, and thus can offer comparable services at lower costs. When can an information technology-based strategy confer sustainable competitive advantage? The answer may lie with the role of strategic resources in explaining the allocation of economic benefits from an IT innovation. Specifically, information technology can lead to sustainable competitive advantage when it is used to leverage differences in strategic resources. This may be true even in cases where duplication is relatively easy and there are few dynamic effects, like first-mover advantages, to protect the innovation. An important characteristic of IT is its ability to manage interactions among economic activities; economic theory can be used to establish a link between this characteristic of IT and shifts in resource values. This allows us to identify and examine some opportunities for deploying IT to leverage structural resource differences among firms, including differences in vertical integration and diversification as well as differences in the quality and organization of key resources.
Keywords: competitive information systems; corporate strategy; information technology; management of information systems; strategic resources; transactions cost economics
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List of Topics

#36 0.226 competitive advantage strategic systems information sustainable sustainability dynamic opportunities capabilities environments environmental turbulence turbulent dynamics key quest create sustained ability
#35 0.122 technology organizational information organizations organization new work perspective innovation processes used technological understanding technologies transformation consequences perspectives use administrative economic
#123 0.117 information strategy strategic technology management systems competitive executives role cio chief senior executive cios sis support organization officer position ceos
#168 0.099 firms firm financial services firm's size examine new based result level including results industry important account does suggests characterize limited
#218 0.096 role roles gender differences women significant play age men plays sample differ played vary understand critical greater implications relatively offered
#219 0.081 response responses different survey questions results research activities respond benefits certain leads two-stage interactions study address respondents question directly categories
#138 0.077 use question opportunities particular identify information grammars researchers shown conceptual ontological given facilitate new little constraints dual answer post-adoption theory
#214 0.071 resource resources allocation chargeback manager effectiveness problem firms case gap allocating diverse dependence just bridge cooperative criticality acquisition duplication extent
#151 0.052 costs cost switching reduce transaction increase benefits time economic production transactions savings reduction impact services reduced affect expected optimal associated