Date of Award

4-30-2018

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Computer Information Systems

First Advisor

Arun Rai

Second Advisor

Detmar Straub

Third Advisor

Aaron Baird

Fourth Advisor

Chris Forman

Abstract

While information technology (IT) has been established as a key element for firm performance, it is unclear how firms can use various IT capabilities to achieve a diverse set of often conflicting performance outcomes, as well as how firms can successfully encourage IT-enabled innovations in the context of a changing institutional environnt. The objective of this three-essay dissertation is to develop an in-depth perspective of the business value of IT in large institutional settings with changing regulatory conditions. Drawing on a diverse set of theories, two of the essays, one situated in the U.S. electric utility context and the other situated in the U.S. healthcare context, investigate how firms use IT capabilities to achieve simultaneous outcomes that are in tension, while also experiencing significant change in their institutional environment. The third essay, again situated in the U.S. healthcare context, focuses on identifying the influence of a cost aspiration shortfall on IT-enabled Clinical Process Management Innovativeness, and by identifying how the nature of this relationship changes based on the progression of a federal regulation. For each of the three essays, multi-source archival databases were constructed for multiple years (2005-2014 for essay 1, 2008-2014 for essay 2, and 2007-2014 for essay 3). Multiple methods were also employed to analyze the data and test hypotheses (stochastic frontier analysis for essay 1, panel data analysis for essay 2, and multi-level modeling for essay 3). All together, these three essays contribute to the IS literature by elaborating our understanding of the business value of IT – the impact of IT innovations, resources, and capabilities – under a changing institutional environment and suggests new directions for research in the antecedents and consequences of IT innovations, resources, and capabilities.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.57709/11630933

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