Information technology and organizational capabilities: A longitudinal study of the apparel industry

Jifeng Luo, Ming Fan*, Han Zhang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

65 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Business value of information technology (IT) is one of the most important research streams in information systems (IS) research. In this study, we follow the resource-based view (RBV) in strategy literature to study how IT enables firms to develop new organizational capabilities. Using structured content analysis, we have collected longitudinal data from news media for 49 publicly traded apparel firms in the U.S. over the period of 1995 to 2007. The financial data were collected from Standard & Poor's COMPUSTAT data. In this research, we study how IT assets affect apparel firms' organizational capabilities such as operational capability, customer service, and ability to innovate. The U.S. apparel industry is largely heterogeneous in its use of IT and organizational capabilities, and therefore provides a particularly interesting case to investigate the relationship between them. Our empirical results show that IT can lead to higher level of organizational capabilities. Firm financial resources are important in affecting the relationship between IT and operational efficiency as well as the relationship between IT and customer service. In addition, we find that operational efficiency plays a mediating role in how IT affects customer service.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)186-194
Number of pages9
JournalDecision Support Systems
Volume53
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2012

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Management Information Systems
  • Information Systems
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
  • Information Systems and Management

User-Defined Keywords

  • Apparel industry
  • Information technology
  • Organizational capabilities

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