پیش بینی تحلیلگران و سرمایه گذاری در فناوری اطلاعات

Previous research has shown that investments in intangible assets, especially research and development, can increase the difficulty in forecasting a company's earnings. This information risk translates into a lower market value for the firm. Because IT investments have many intangible characteristics similar to research and development expenditures, information technology investments may also increase information risk. Tests using IT spending data for over 1000 firms show that IT spending does increase earnings forecast dispersion and error. Increased dispersion and error might affect the market value of the firm. Using a residual income valuation model, results show that as IT spending increases, residual income is capitalized into market value at a decreasing amount, controlling for diminishing marginal returns to IT spending. This research highlights the importance for IT-intensive companies to find ways to decrease information risk through other forms of communication with market participants.

While investments in information technology (IT) are generally expected to increase the value of the firm (Bharadwaj et al., 1999 and Brynjolfsson and Yang, 1999), the nature of IT investments may contribute to increased uncertainty about future earnings. As IT intensity increases, the benefits of IT investment go from clearly definable benefits to softer benefits that are difficult to evaluate in advance (Dehning et al., 2003). As the level of IT expenditures increases, predicting future earnings may become more difficult. Because investors may have difficulty translating the soft or less tangible benefits of IT into future earnings when a firm invests in IT, current earnings and other publicly available information will be less reliable for making predictions. This source of increased uncertainty about the benefits of IT is referred to as information risk.

This research demonstrates that as the level of IT expenditures increases, information risk increases. That is, IT spending is positive and significantly related to the amount of dispersion and error in financial analyst forecasts, after controlling for all other relevant factors. This suggests that predicting future earnings may become more difficult for firms with high IT intensity. The findings show that the capitalization rate on residual income decreases as IT spending increases, implying a higher cost of capital for firms with higher IT spending. In addition, there are diminishing returns to IT investments as the amount of IT investments increases.