The effects of coupling IT and work process strategies in redesign projects

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mitchell, VL; Zmud, RW
• 署名单位: University System of Ohio; Ohio State University; University of Oklahoma System; University of Oklahoma - Norman
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.10.4.424
• 发表日期: 1999
• 页码: 424-438
• 关键词: IT-enabled redesign; Process innovation; coupling; IT strategy; redesign strategy; project planning; project uncertainty; PROJECT PERFORMANCE; user satisfaction

摘要

Organizational adaptation to competition often means inventing or adopting a process innovation and the daunting challenge of implementing it. Increasingly, process innovations rely on the capabilities embedded in an organization's IT infrastructure. Successfully implementing an IT-enabled process innovation depends largely on how a project's IT and work process designs fit and evolve with this IT infrastructure. However, little empirical research guides the formulation of IT and work process strategies. This study addresses the question: How does the degree of coupling between a redesign project's IT strategy and work process strategy affect project performance? Data collection utilized a multistage research design employing comprehensive phone interviews and matched surveys among three sets of respondents (project managers, IT managers, and process users) across 43 process redesign projects in the health care industry. Our findings indicate project performance improves with tightly coupled IT and work process strategies when implementing process inventions, and with loosely coupled strategies when implementing imitations.