Despite large investments in ICT over many years, there have been conflicting studies as to whether or not the ICT benefits have actually occurred.
Published in Chapter:
ICT Investment Evaluation Practices in Large Organizations
Chad Lin (Curtin University of Technology, Australia) and Yu-An Huang (National Chi Nan University, Taiwan)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 7
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-845-1.ch049
Abstract
Business-to-business electronic commerce (B2BEC) represents the largest growth sector, that is, 80% of revenues—in e-commerce (Pires & Aisbett, 2003). IDC predicts that Australian B2BEC spending will grow at 70% annually and is likely to reach $166.25 billion by 2006 (Pearce, 2002). ICT investments in B2BEC are used to assist in the interorganization acquisition of goods into the value chain and to provide interfaces between customers, vendors, suppliers, and sellers (Barua, Konana, & Whinston, 2004). Although B2BEC provides organizations a wealth of new opportunities and ways of doing business, it is extremely difficult to evaluate and therefore, have yet to prove enduring sources of profit (Laudon & Laudon, 2004). Research studies and practitioner surveys report contradictory findings on the effect of the ICT expenditures on organizational productivity (Thatcher & Pingry, 2004). In particular, measurement of the business value of ICT investment has been the subject of considerable debate among academics and practitioners (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2003; Sugumaran & Arogyaswamy, 2004). Although some ICT productivity studies have produced inconclusive and negative results (Zhu, 2004), other research indicated that spending in ICT is directly related to organizational performance (e.g., Hu & Quan, 2005). Some researchers (e.g., Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2003; Zhu, 2004) suggested that the confusion over ICT productivity is due to, among other things, the lack or inappropriate use of ICT evaluation and benefits realization methodologies or processes.