Research perspectives on innovation through information technology management in a networked world

The role of IT in organizations has evolved from the execution of back-office transaction processing to enabling strategic-level decisions. The rapid growth of new types of IT such as wireless communications, mobile commerce, inter-organizational systems, and Web 2.0 technologies (such as social networking sites) has enabled firms to develop new types of disruptive business models that transcend organizational boundaries. Firms can tap software development expertise and leverage these resources across a global network, using collaboration tools to connect employees with customers, suppliers, and business partners. Firms can also tap into the expertise of their extended value network, comprised of their partners, suppliers, and customers, to solve problems creatively that benefit the entire corporate ecosystem. At the same time, technology evolution has given rise to new challenges that frustrate both researchers and practitioners. While there is widespread recognition of the tremendous benefits IT can bring to firms, there is also a fear that in an increasingly volatile and unstable world, IT can sow the seeds of rigidity that inadvertently lock firms into an outdated and increasingly ineffective business strategy. Accordingly, the challenge facing firms that are trying to remain at the head of their respective industries is one of using IT to be innovative while remaining flexible in the face of an unpredictable future. While prior research has explored the role of IT in terms of its business impact within organizations, little work has been done to explore IT’s impact in the presence of network effects in an increasingly networked world. In this special issue of Information Technology and Management, we have brought together five papers that reflect the theme of IT-enabled innovation and its impact in a networked world. Two of these papers were first presented at the Tenth INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST) held in San Francisco in November 2005. We also invited other authors whose work resonates with the theme of this special issue to submit their papers to be considered for possible publication. In all, we invited authors of six papers to consider having their work competitively reviewed for possible publication in the special issue. Our approach involved developmental reviewing which entailed working with authors to improve the overall quality of their submissions through constructive, yet challenging reviews. We also provided authors with the option of submitting papers that were derivative works of their presentations at INFORMS CIST. Most papers underwent two rounds of review; all papers were diligently and extensively edited to ensure a uniform level of quality. We offer these papers to the information systems research community with the hope that readers will benefit from coverage of these issues, as well as to provide a platform to deepen the research dialogue in this emerging research domain. This special issue begins with a theme piece, by Robert Kauffman of Arizona State University and Ajay Kumar of the Government of Kerala, India, titled ‘‘Network effects and embedded options: Decision-making under uncertainty for network technology investments.’’ The analysis of network effects in technology-based networks continues to I. R. Bardhan (&) The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA e-mail: bardhan@utdallas.edu