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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/222951 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Lin, Chad Ying |
| Publisher | Curtin University of Technology, School of Information Systems. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | unrestricted |
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