Organizational Information Technology Maturity: Antecedent Factors and Consequent Outcomes

At a time when organizations are pouring increasing amounts of money into IT, what moderates the effect of that investment on positive outcomes? Consumer, user, and business manager perceptions of the value of IT investments are quite variable. Some think that IT delivers value; others do not. What distinguishes between those organizations whose investments are seen to pay off and those whose investments do not meet expectations? In an era when "Information Systems" includes entities such as websites, social media, even games, it is important to understand how people perceive investments in these entities. Is it something about the systems themselves -- and not unrelated to the hoary "systems success" question? Is it something about the way that the IT unit and IT people conduct themselves?This research, focusing on a measure of the maturity of organizations with respect to their IT infrastructure and use, attempts to answer that question at the level of individuals. To conduct this examination, we invoked a new theory of information systems usage called "Organizational IT Maturity" (OITM), defined as the maturity of the relationship between an organization and its IT tools (including the people who create and maintain these tools [9]).Our research model is based on practical of over 150 interviewed CIOs. If OITM levels influence positive outcomes, then driving up OITM levels should increase both the actual positive outcomes as well as the perception of these outcomes. In this model, the three levels of OITM (awareness, willingness and trust) are individually influenced by both user capability (such as ability to use IT) and by the perceived quality of communication with the IT unit.In "Aware" organizations, users, managers and executives are aware of the importance of information as a critical business resource and understand the role and function of information in their business processes. In "Willing" organizations, users, managers and executives realize that in order to incorporate their information into their business processes successfully, it will be costly and hence they will have to invest money, time, psychological and physical effort, etc., to obtain and process information. This investment represents an appreciation of value of information and understanding of the role, function and limitations of the technology and the functional unit that provides it. In the "Trusting" organization users, managers and executives expect the IT function to deliver with respect to its capabilities and goals and also respect information system capabilities and processes and those who are charged with providing and servicing them (the IT unit).We conducted our research in a large multinational logistics firm. Following interviews with nine non-IT C-level executives, a questionnaire was developed and pretested. Items relating to the dimensions of user capability, communication, awareness, willingness, trust, politics, and performance were included. Following this, web-administered questionnaires were provided to non IT employees during the summer of 2013. The CIO sent email to all employees, requesting their participation in the survey. The results for the 218 management-level employees who responded are reviewed here. Managers are more likely to be familiar with the work of an organization and will have a better idea of what the organizational values are than non-managerial employees. The results demonstrate that the components of organizational IT maturity are positively correlated with a set of outcome measures which include perceptions of increased productivity and savings of time, among others. Furthermore, the study showed that these measures of OITM are correlated with user capabilities with the technology and with the level of communication with the IT people.