This study was motivated by the researcher's, as well as his superior's, concern that a fundamental area of business, information technology investment and evaluation, continues to be problematic for many organisations. The lack of an integrated and methodical approach to the problem, as well as the fragmented research done to date on the effective measurement of IT-business-value, amplified the need for this study. The main objective of this study was to propose a new, more comprehensive model of the dimensions constituting IT-business-value, as well as related measures. The resultant ITIEM model dimensions were designed into a practical and holistic ITIEM methodology, intended to aid practice with: * Demonstrating how IT investments can enable measurable IT business-value * Determining which IT investments will yield the most IT-business-value for the organisation; and * Ensuring that IT investments and business initiatives support each The study has also endeavoured to contribute to the growth of knowledge by raising new problems, mapping out a program for future research on ITIEM, and putting 1 "Dimensions" refers to "groupings" of IT-business-value measures. forward a benefits framework that is verifiable by empirical observation, with the use of both case studies as well as action research. The study design includes: 1) A literature survey to identify the dimensions of IT-business-value, to identify the measures of IT-business-value, and to identify a candidate starting ITIEM methodology that is most comprehensive, addressing the most relevant measures of IT-business-value. This information is used to produce a draft case study protocol. 2) A single, exploratory pilot case study of a South African bank and a resultant revised case study protocol. 3) A cross-case analysis of a multiple case study of five South African banks (including the pilot) yielding a draft ITIEM model. 4) A cross-case analysis of three Australian banks, further enhancing the draft ITIEM model; and a cross-country comparison of the South African and Australian banks. The multiple case studies within South Africa and within Australia represent literal replications, while the cross-country comparison represents theoretical replication. 5) The existing ITIEM methodology selected in (1) is revised to reflect the draft ITIEM model and a new hybrid ITIEM methodology is proposed. 6) This hybrid ITIEM methodology is implemented and revised with action research resulting in the final ITIEM methodology and final ITIEM model.

This study extends our understanding of how information systems impact business value creation by examining the effect of digital enablement of business-to-business exchange on customer outcomes. We shed light on the connection between information technology investment and firm performance by focusing on how information technology is used (Devaraj and Kohli 2003) in an industrial services context and by highlighting the importance of indirect effects (Mittal and Nault 2009). A conceptual model is developed that combines a customer centric perspective (Sheth et al. 2000) with elements from the information systems success framework (DeLone and McLean 1992, DeLone and McLean 2003). Mediating factors are identified in the chain of effects from information technology specific business-to-business service quality characteristics to customer outcomes. In addition, we consider two contextual factors, relationship duration and customer dependence, which are known to alter the nature of buyer-supplier relationships but which have received little attention in research on digital enablement of business-to-business exchange. An empirical test of hypothesized relationships was performed using subjective and objective archival data from business-to-business exchange relationships for a logistics services vendor. All expected main effects were confirmed. Customer satisfaction was found to be a significant mediator in the chain of effects from information technology specific business-to-business service quality characteristics to customer outcomes. In addition, logistics service quality was found to mediate the relationships between system quality and customer satisfaction and between information quality and customer satisfaction. The hypothesized moderating effects, however, were not found to be significant. Robustness of the findings was confirmed by testing model hypotheses using data from exchange relationships with customers in two different industries, manufacturing and wholesale trade. Differences in analysis results are consistent with industry differences. This study contributes to the literatures on interorganizational information systems (Rai et al. 2006) and information technology business value (Melville et al. 2004) by identifying mediating mechanisms in the chain of effects from digital enablement of exchange to customer outcomes. Explication of mediating mechanisms improves our understanding about the indirect nature of impacts from information technology. This study also contributes to the literature on information systems by extending DeLone and McLean's (2003) model of information systems success to the context of business-to-business exchange relationships. In addition, this study contributes to the literature on services marketing (Zeithaml and Bitner 2003, Berry and Parasuraman 1993) by showing how system quality and information quality impact logistics service quality and customer satisfaction in a business-to-business exchange context.

Innovation ecosystem strategy is often adopted by platform technology owners to seek complementary innovation from resources located outside the firm to exploit indirect network effect. In this dissertation I aim to address the issues that are related to the formation and business value of platform innovation ecosystems in the enterprise software industry. The first study explores the role of three factors - increased payoff from access to platform owner's installed base, risk of misappropriation due to knowledge transfer, and the extent of competition - in shaping the decisions of third-party complementors to join a platform ecosystem. The second study evaluates the effect of participation in a platform ecosystem on small independent software vendors' business performances, and how their appropriability strategies, such as ownership of intellectual property rights or downstream complementary capabilities, affect the returns from such partnerships. Built upon resource based view and theory of dynamic capabilities, the third study reveals that users' co-innovation in enterprise information systems, measured by their participation in online professional community networks, constitute a source of intangible organizational asset that helps to enhance firm level IT productivity.

Purpose – Motivated by the increasing role of information technology (IT) in today’s organizations, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between business and IT executives in order to improve the organizational performance of the different aspects of IT technology and related systems. In the process, special attention is given to drivers which facilitate the cooperation between the parties involved. Design/methodology/approach – This survey-based research utilizes structural equation modeling methodology to uncover the relevant variables pertaining to the promotion of a positive social and strategic context needed to increase the effectiveness of organizational IT facets. Findings – The effectiveness of IT in modern organizations is contingent on a social alignment, business – IT alignment, strategic consistency, and common vision among the people who manage the IT function and those who need the organization. Research limitations/implications – This study is based on a sample of Portuguese manufacturing organizations. Therefore, findings and conclusions should be interpreted accordingly. In this context, future research in other organizational cultural settings is called for in order to refine and validate the results of this study. Practical implications – The role of establishing an organizational culture which stresses the common goal and mutual trust and cooperation in creating effective IT organizational utilization is underscored. As such, business executives are encouraged to exercise their leadership skills in order to create an organizational strategy which aligns IT capabilities and investments with the competitive strategy of the organization. In this context, creating an organizational culture which promotes business – IT alignment in a healthy social context is necessary. Originality/value – The issues and concerns addressed in this study should bridge the gap between business and IT executives. In the process, this study facilitates and encourages the effective utilization of the different facets of IT technology as they better serve the people of the organization. This advances the cost and practice of the strategic organizational role of IT investments.

Há mais de 50 anos se discute a importância da Tecnologia da Informação (TI) para as organizações e ainda não se chegou a um concenso sobre a sua capacidade de gerar benefícios e nem quais são eles especificamente. Porém, cada vez mais estudos apontam para a capacidade da TI gerar valor para as organizações, logo, acredita-se que ainda é necessário ampliar o conhecimento acerca do tema. Também, porque os investimentos nessa área não páram de crescer e ainda há muita divergência com relação ao tipo de medida de desempenho organizacional que se deve utilizar. O objetivo dessa pesquisa é medir a percepção dos executivos de organizações que fazem uso intensivo de informações nas suas atividades diárias a respeito dos benefícios organizacionais proporcionados pela TI. O método escolhido foi a pesquisa survey, realizada a partir de um instrumento previamente proposto e adaptado, contendo 5 variáveis e 27 itens. A pesquisa survey foi realizada em duas etapas: estudo de pré-teste e estudo final, resultando em um novo instrumento de pesquisa. Diferentes técnicas estatísticas foram empregadas para refinar o instrumento, como Análise de Confiabilidade, Análise de Item-Total Corrigido (CITC), Análise Fatorial Exploratória e Análise Fatorial Confirmatória. Como resultado desse refinamento emergiu um modelo teórico de pesquisa final contendo 4 variáveis, sendo as dimensões de benefícios Estratégicos, Informacionais, Transacionais e Transformacionais, dispostas em 15 itens. Foi verificado que a variável Infra-Estrutura não se confirmou e alguns de seus itens migraram para outras dimensões. Também como contribuição para a área de SI, o modelo teórico de pesquisa final se mostrou adequado para avaliar o valor da TI para organizações usuárias intensivas de informação. A principal contribuição da pesquisa para a prática gerencial é o mapeamento da percepção dos executivos a respeito dos benefícios que a TI proporciona às suas organizações e um novo modelo representando o valor da TI. / For the last 50 years, the Information Technology (IT) organizational importance has been discussed, and so far, there is no common agreement about it‟s capacity to generate organizational benefits and neither which are they, specifically. Despite of that, there are more and more studies mentioning the IT business value, so it‟s still necessary to add knowledge to this subject. Besides, the IT investments are growing and divergence about what kind of organizational performance measure to use still exists. The purpose of this research is to measure the perception about IT business value for the organizations with intensive informational use executives. The chosen method is survey research, conducted with an instrument previously proposed and adapted to measure IT business value, containing 5 dimensions divided in 27 items. Survey research was conducted in two moments: pre-test study and final study, generating a new instrument. Diferent quantitative procedures were used to refine the instrument, like Reliability Analysis, Corrected Item-Total Correlation (CITC) Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. From these refinament emerged a model with 4 organizational benefits factors, being Estratégicos, Informacionais, Transacionais e Transformacionais, disposed in 15 items. The Infrastructure factor was not confirmed in the final model and some of it‟s items migrated to other factors. Also as academic knowledge, the final model is adequated measure de the IT businnes value for organizations with intensive informational use. The main contribution of this research to the business practice is the perception of it‟s executives about the IT organizational benefits to their organizations and a new model representing the IT business value.

Há mais de 50 anos se discute a importância da Tecnologia da Informação (TI) para as organizações e ainda não se chegou a um concenso sobre a sua capacidade de gerar benefícios e nem quais são eles especificamente. Porém, cada vez mais estudos apontam para a capacidade da TI gerar valor para as organizações, logo, acredita-se que ainda é necessário ampliar o conhecimento acerca do tema. Também, porque os investimentos nessa área não páram de crescer e ainda há muita divergência com relação ao tipo de medida de desempenho organizacional que se deve utilizar. O objetivo dessa pesquisa é medir a percepção dos executivos de organizações que fazem uso intensivo de informações nas suas atividades diárias a respeito dos benefícios organizacionais proporcionados pela TI. O método escolhido foi a pesquisa survey, realizada a partir de um instrumento previamente proposto e adaptado, contendo 5 variáveis e 27 itens. A pesquisa survey foi realizada em duas etapas: estudo de pré-teste e estudo final, resultando em um novo instrumento de pesquisa. Diferentes técnicas estatísticas foram empregadas para refinar o instrumento, como Análise de Confiabilidade, Análise de Item-Total Corrigido (CITC), Análise Fatorial Exploratória e Análise Fatorial Confirmatória. Como resultado desse refinamento emergiu um modelo teórico de pesquisa final contendo 4 variáveis, sendo as dimensões de benefícios Estratégicos, Informacionais, Transacionais e Transformacionais, dispostas em 15 itens. Foi verificado que a variável Infra-Estrutura não se confirmou e alguns de seus itens migraram para outras dimensões. Também como contribuição para a área de SI, o modelo teórico de pesquisa final se mostrou adequado para avaliar o valor da TI para organizações usuárias intensivas de informação. A principal contribuição da pesquisa para a prática gerencial é o mapeamento da percepção dos executivos a respeito dos benefícios que a TI proporciona às suas organizações e um novo modelo representando o valor da TI. / For the last 50 years, the Information Technology (IT) organizational importance has been discussed, and so far, there is no common agreement about it‟s capacity to generate organizational benefits and neither which are they, specifically. Despite of that, there are more and more studies mentioning the IT business value, so it‟s still necessary to add knowledge to this subject. Besides, the IT investments are growing and divergence about what kind of organizational performance measure to use still exists. The purpose of this research is to measure the perception about IT business value for the organizations with intensive informational use executives. The chosen method is survey research, conducted with an instrument previously proposed and adapted to measure IT business value, containing 5 dimensions divided in 27 items. Survey research was conducted in two moments: pre-test study and final study, generating a new instrument. Diferent quantitative procedures were used to refine the instrument, like Reliability Analysis, Corrected Item-Total Correlation (CITC) Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. From these refinament emerged a model with 4 organizational benefits factors, being Estratégicos, Informacionais, Transacionais e Transformacionais, disposed in 15 items. The Infrastructure factor was not confirmed in the final model and some of it‟s items migrated to other factors. Also as academic knowledge, the final model is adequated measure de the IT businnes value for organizations with intensive informational use. The main contribution of this research to the business practice is the perception of it‟s executives about the IT organizational benefits to their organizations and a new model representing the IT business value.

Há mais de 50 anos se discute a importância da Tecnologia da Informação (TI) para as organizações e ainda não se chegou a um concenso sobre a sua capacidade de gerar benefícios e nem quais são eles especificamente. Porém, cada vez mais estudos apontam para a capacidade da TI gerar valor para as organizações, logo, acredita-se que ainda é necessário ampliar o conhecimento acerca do tema. Também, porque os investimentos nessa área não páram de crescer e ainda há muita divergência com relação ao tipo de medida de desempenho organizacional que se deve utilizar. O objetivo dessa pesquisa é medir a percepção dos executivos de organizações que fazem uso intensivo de informações nas suas atividades diárias a respeito dos benefícios organizacionais proporcionados pela TI. O método escolhido foi a pesquisa survey, realizada a partir de um instrumento previamente proposto e adaptado, contendo 5 variáveis e 27 itens. A pesquisa survey foi realizada em duas etapas: estudo de pré-teste e estudo final, resultando em um novo instrumento de pesquisa. Diferentes técnicas estatísticas foram empregadas para refinar o instrumento, como Análise de Confiabilidade, Análise de Item-Total Corrigido (CITC), Análise Fatorial Exploratória e Análise Fatorial Confirmatória. Como resultado desse refinamento emergiu um modelo teórico de pesquisa final contendo 4 variáveis, sendo as dimensões de benefícios Estratégicos, Informacionais, Transacionais e Transformacionais, dispostas em 15 itens. Foi verificado que a variável Infra-Estrutura não se confirmou e alguns de seus itens migraram para outras dimensões. Também como contribuição para a área de SI, o modelo teórico de pesquisa final se mostrou adequado para avaliar o valor da TI para organizações usuárias intensivas de informação. A principal contribuição da pesquisa para a prática gerencial é o mapeamento da percepção dos executivos a respeito dos benefícios que a TI proporciona às suas organizações e um novo modelo representando o valor da TI. / For the last 50 years, the Information Technology (IT) organizational importance has been discussed, and so far, there is no common agreement about it‟s capacity to generate organizational benefits and neither which are they, specifically. Despite of that, there are more and more studies mentioning the IT business value, so it‟s still necessary to add knowledge to this subject. Besides, the IT investments are growing and divergence about what kind of organizational performance measure to use still exists. The purpose of this research is to measure the perception about IT business value for the organizations with intensive informational use executives. The chosen method is survey research, conducted with an instrument previously proposed and adapted to measure IT business value, containing 5 dimensions divided in 27 items. Survey research was conducted in two moments: pre-test study and final study, generating a new instrument. Diferent quantitative procedures were used to refine the instrument, like Reliability Analysis, Corrected Item-Total Correlation (CITC) Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. From these refinament emerged a model with 4 organizational benefits factors, being Estratégicos, Informacionais, Transacionais e Transformacionais, disposed in 15 items. The Infrastructure factor was not confirmed in the final model and some of it‟s items migrated to other factors. Also as academic knowledge, the final model is adequated measure de the IT businnes value for organizations with intensive informational use. The main contribution of this research to the business practice is the perception of it‟s executives about the IT organizational benefits to their organizations and a new model representing the IT business value.

Today, with various technology and business standards, organizations face rapid changes in both internal and external environments. To be able to rapidly respond to such changing environments, integration of software systems has entered among the top priorities of many organizations. However, despite extended use of software integration, methods for estimating the business value of implementing such integration are still missing. Besides presenting a conceptual model to define the benefits of systems integration and related causal relationships, this study proposes a method for measuring such benefits in monetary terms. In particular, we  demonstrate how a mathematical programming technique called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) can be used to evaluate the business value of software integration. Our method is illustrated using data from 12 organizations. The results indicate significant productivity gains by integrating software systems, which represent the value of software integration in organizations.

The interest in business benefits is an area that is constantly growing, especially in regard to the development of IT systems. As a result of this, it may be important to study the phenomenon and identify which factors and components are important for an organization to investigate when implementing a new IT system. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate organizational value creation during the implementation of a new IT system. This is done by studying system X and discovering its potential effects, as well as capturing relevant factors and describing their relationships to an organization. To investigate this area, we have conducted a qualitative case study that is consistently grounded in data. The data that we have collected throughout the work has been obtained from semi-structured interviews with daily users, as well as developers of system X. The primary findings for this study that have been discovered are mainly five factors that can affect business benefits. The overarching theme that has emerged is that communication is a large part that permeates most factors, although there are other important aspects that contribute to understanding business benefits.