TRANSFORMATIONAL FOCUS IN STRATEGIC IT VISION : AN INDUSTRY -LEVEL CONCEPTUAL MODEL

It has recently been argued that the IT literature has neglected to sufficiently focus on the importance of the influence that industry factors have on a firm’s IT strategy and IT management practices, in short – industry matters. (Chiasson & Davidson, 2005) Strategic IT Vision (SIV) has been studied at the firm level for many years. The categories Automate, Informate & Transform have been used to categorize the Strategic IT Vision of firms for more than 20 years. At the same time, some have suggested that SIV can be observed at the industry level in that, at a given time, the firms within an industry exhibit a certain amount of homogeneity of IT strategy and vision. What industry factors might lead to the adoption of a particular SIV by its firms? This paper develops a conceptual framework of industry factors that can be theorized to lead to a greater transformative nature of the SIV of a particular industry.