A socio political model of the relationship between IT investments and business performance

In recent years many studies have been published on the assessment of payoffs from investments in IT. The research has produced mainly mixed results. Different explanations can be given for these mixed results. One possible explanation might be the dominance of the rational perspective in previous research. The consequence of this overemphasis on rationality is that the social political nature of the IT investment process has largely been neglected in previous research on IT business value. This omission produces an incomplete picture and might contribute to the conflicting empirical results. In this research we studied whether and how the socio political perspective can be used to explain the mixed results. Case study research was used to test whether the attitude towards the value of IT, destructive conflict, and a low level of trust influence the relationship between IT investments and business performance.

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