اثرات هم افزایی منابع مبتنی بر IT بر قابلیت های سازمانی و عملکرد شرکت

Computing the value of IT investments and clarifying how the portfolio of IT/IS resources affect a firm's performance and sustainable competitive advantage are critical issues today. We attempted to develop an effective measurement technique and use organizational theory to discover the strategic role of IT-enabled resources in the firm's competitive agenda. Based on a resource-based view of the firm, we proposed a way to evaluate the synergistic effect of such resources on the firm's capabilities, as they, influence the firms’ strategic objectives and improve its financial performance. The technological, human, and organizational resources work together to generate sub-additive cost and super-additive value synergies. Operations, R&D, and marketing capabilities allow firms to implement a business strategy that reflects its customer needs. A survey was conducted to check our framework. Our findings should provide valuable decision guides for practitioners when choosing a portfolio of IT/IS resources for implementing business strategies.

Investment in IT resources has long been assumed to be essential in providing competitive advantage by implementing the firm's business strategies [17] and [19]. IT innovations used in the automation and reengineering of organizational processes have reformed customer-centric services and reduced cost, etc. From a resource-based view (RBV), the firm can sustain its competitive advantages if it possesses valuable, rare, non-substitutable, and inimitable resources [25]. Nowadays, packaged applications or back-office suites are available in the open market. Such commodities are easy to adapt in the firm without much, if any, rework. However many have asked whether IT commodities can provide sustainable competitive advantage because they are easy to replicate in a competing firm. Even worse, firms may overspend if the resource is neither rare nor highly relevant to strategic advantage. This point of view ignores the fact IT innovations may be fundamental drivers of organizational transformation for successful business outcomes [5]. Hence, the evaluation of IT should focus on the planning, execution, and management of all investments. Accordingly, a firm should (1) ensure that IT investments meet the strategic objectives of the new business model; (2) be innovative by continuously reviewing a firm's dynamic capabilities to cope with the transformation of industry; and (3) tightly interact IT resources with others to maximize the overall value. Thus, the IT business value model must compute the value that the impact has on the organization’ bottom line [12]. However, many questions remain and need to be answered: (1) When IT-dependent and complementary organizational resources are deployed in the business, how does the synergy between the resources affect organizational transformation? (2) How is a general intermediate web formed to improve the financial performance of the organization? (3) How can the firm examine and link dominant dynamic capabilities to fit the firm's sustainable strategic objectives and financial performance without producing causal ambiguity and social complexity [20]? Accordingly, we hoped to develop a model for exploring the underlying mechanisms linking the synergistic effects of IT-enabled resources to organizational capabilities and firm performance. IT resources and complementary organizational resources are its first-tier factors. They also act as primary inputs in increasing organizational capabilities which help to create and deliver customer and shareholder value.

Our study explored the strategic value of IT-enabled resources and the effects of IT investments on firm performance from the RBV of the firm. IT-enabled resources were found to have significant sub-additive and super-additive synergistic effects on organizational capabilities. Because these are essential to create customer value and implement competitive strategies, IT-enabled resources are possible sources of sustainable competitive advantages. For practitioners, our models provide an integrated view of overall organizational performance to help them make appropriate decisions about the use of IT-enabled resources. For researchers, our study provides a useful framework for identifying the pathway of effect from IT-enabled resources to firm performance. Due to organizational learning and adjustment, IT investments may take time to foster IT-enabled resources, leverage organizational capabilities, and achieve business goals before gaining major financial outcomes. Quantitative financial performance may be finally attained if firms possess superior organizational capability and are able to achieve their strategic objectives successfully. 5.1. Limitation of our study Because the research population was in one industry and the empirical data were collected during a specific period of time, our study has some limitations. First, all empirical data were collected in the third quarter of 2010, whereas the financial performance was collected in the second quarter of 2011. The time interval between these events spans only half a year but the qualitative metrics were mostly leading indicators, whereas the financial metrics were lagging ones. Thus, the realization of financial performance is generally later by one or more years. In contrast, the strategic objectives of business are mid to long-term metrics that will be consistently influenced by qualitative metrics and impact the financial performance of business. Therefore, H1 to H4 were supported in our study. The surveyed population was mainly from high-tech manufacturing in Taiwan: 56% were in information and electronics companies and 10% in biochemistry companies. Thus, our conclusions are applicable to high-tech manufacturing and may not be true in others. Nevertheless, high-tech manufacturers still rely on operational excellence to achieve cost strategy and gain competitive advantage. For instance, the high-tech OEM/ODM companies of Taiwan can continuously upgrade and improve their manufacturing processes to provide higher yield and lower production cost. Because of the complexity of high-tech manufacturing processes, the operations capabilities of OEM/ODM companies are difficult to imitate, and consequently a source of sustainable competitive advantage.