In modern organisations a large portion of senior management's time is now being consumed in finding ways to measure the contribution of their organisations' IS/IT investments on business performance. It has been shown that IS/IT investments in many organisations are huge and increasing rapidly every year and yet there is still a lack of understanding of the impact of the proper IS/IT investment evaluation processes and practices in these organisations. At the same time, the issue of expected and actual benefits realised from IS/IT investments has generated a significant amount of debate in the IS/IT literature amongst the researchers and practitioners. This is as true in Australia as it is in the rest of the developed world. Thus, one can argue that a detailed study of current practice in IS/IT investment evaluation in Australia is warranted. In this research study, an attempt was made to: (1) establish current Australian industry and government practices and norms in managing IS/IT benefits and evaluation; and (2) develop a framework based on the fit between theory and practice of IS/IT investment evaluation by large Australian organisations, particularly in an environment where much of the IS/IT is outsourced. Research objective one utilised an existing questionnaire based on Ward et al. (1996). This questionnaire was sent to the IS/IT managers of the largest 500 Australian organisations. The aim of this objective was to investigate IS/IT investment evaluation and benefits management and realisation in these Australian organisations, so as to shed light on the current practices and norms in this area. / The second research objective employed two case studies utilising semi-structured interviews, observation and document review. The aim of this objective was to develop a framework based on the fit between theory and practice of IS/IT investment evaluation by large Australian organisations. Results from the survey and two case studies were analysed and a framework for benefits realisation and investment evaluation was developed. The major contribution of this research include first, the creation of several useful guidelines for large outsourcing organisations undertaking IS/IT investment evaluation and benefits realisation processes and second, the development of a benefits realisation and investment evaluation framework which offers a practical tool to help the large organisations to determine when and how the IS/IT investment evaluation and benefits realisation should be adopted.

[pt] A inclusão da flexibilidade gerencial nas avaliações de projetos vem promovendo análises mais condizentes com a realidade, quando comparadas àquelas geradas pelos métodos tradicionais (VPL e TIR, por exemplo). Isso porque, de acordo com o comportamento do cenário, passa-se a considerar a possibilidade de realizações de mudanças nos planos anteriormente traçados. O estudo desse tema é especialmente importante em cenários que apresentam bastante incerteza associada, pesados investimentos e alto grau de irreversibilidade. A indústria petrolífera encaixa- se perfeitamente no perfil desse cenário, justificando portanto, a consideração da flexibilidade gerencial nas avaliações de seus projetos, feita através da analogia às opções financeiras. Nesse caso, devido a ordem de grandeza do investimento necessário para o desenvolvimento de um campo de petróleo, o estudo das vantagens que possam vir a ser proporcionadas por um investimento anterior em informação, visando reduzir as incertezas presentes, é um tópico que requer atenção especial, sendo então um dos objetivos dessa dissertação. Para tanto, utilizando um caso real da indústria petrolífera, foi considerada a disponibilidade de três diferentes alternativas para o desenvolvimento do campo, cada qual com sua escala. Daí, sempre assumindo cenários com incertezas técnicas e econômicas, foram feitas simulações para diferentes percentuais de revelações das incertezas (proporcionados pela informação anteriormente coletada), para diferentes custos de investimento em informação e para diferentes combinações de alternativas; simulação essa que ilustra o valor agregado pela flexibilidade criada com a adição de mais alternativas para o desenvolvimento do campo e que vem a ser outro objetivo dessa dissertação. / [en] The Real Options Theory approaches the reality in financial analysis better than the traditional methods (NPV and TIR, for example), as it turns possible to change the plans that had already been done, according to the situation (managerial flexibility). This subject is very important, specially for projects that involve huge amount of investment, a lot of uncertainty and low reversibility. Normally, the oil industry s projects have these kind of characteristics; justifying, this way, the application of this theory. In this case, because of the huge capital needed to be invested in order to develop the oilfield, it s worthwhile to analyze the advantages that can be provided by a forward investment in information in order to reduce the technical uncertainty. This is one of the objectives of this work. Therefore, one real case of the oil industry is being used in this work, considering three different available alternatives for the development of the oilfield, which one having its own scales of production, and always adopting situations with technical and economic uncertainties. It was done simulations for different percentage of uncertainties revelations (provided by the information obtained forwardly), for different costs of the investment in information and for different quantities of alternatives available to the manager. This last simulation shows the value added by the flexibility provided with the increasing of alternatives to develop the oilfield. This is the other objective of this work.