Title:
Determinants
of Information Technology Expenditure: A Contingent Model
Abstract: With the increasing
global interdependencies and the accelerating pace of change, the use
of information technology (IT) has evolved from the automation of work
processes to systematic transformation of the fundamental business
procedures. IT is believed to enhance the competitiveness of the firm
by improving its agility through the support and enablement of dynamic
capabilities (Sambamurthy et al. 2003; Wheeler 2002). It is not
surprising that investment in IT has become a strategic decision and a
significant portion of corporate budgets worldwide. According to the
2000 Gartner IT Spending and Staffing Survey , leading edge adopters of
technology spend 11% percent of their revenue on IT. The 2003 Gartner
survey predicted that most enterprises would increase their budgets by
about 5% in 2004 to support new business models, e-business and the
changes in the IT adoption profile within the enterprises. Consistent with
Kobelsky et al. (2002), the research model will be tested with all
companies listed in InformationWeek and ComputerWorld Annual IT Budget
across six years. With an expectation to provide an operational
evaluation metric for IT budgeting and to investigate the general
pattern of IT budget determinants, we will employ objective measurement
rather than perceptions of managers for operationalization. Multiple
sources will be used for data collection. By the conference date, we
expect to be able to report the operationalization of the constructs
and preliminary results.
Author: Mohamed
Khalifa and Kathy Ning Shen