Resource Complementarity and IT Economies of Scale: Mechanisms and Empirical Evidence

Ulco Woudstra, Egon Berghout*, Chee Tan, Guido Dedene, Patrick Eekeren van

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)
365 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Although IT has become increasingly commoditized, its cost-effective application remains cumbersome. In this study, we explore economies of scale for IT infrastructure and application services. An in-depth appreciation of economies of scale is imperative for an adequate understanding of the impact of IT investments. The empirical evidence for this study, as derived from the benchmark data of 109 Housing Corporations, indicates that economies of scale of IT infrastructure investments exceed those of IT applications. With regards to IT investments, our findings imply that for low IT spending organizations in the likes of Housing Corporations, management can make a difference by devoting at least 60% of their total IT budget on IT infrastructure in order to foster economies of scale and extract strategic benefits. Our findings proffer a sharper theoretical lens to evaluate the importance of shared IT services in managing the level of IT expenditure within organizations. Insights from this study can guide parallel research into other homogeneous industries such as Hospitals or Municipalities.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)185-199
Number of pages15
JournalInformation Systems Management
Volume34
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • Business productivity
  • economies of scale
  • IT productivity
  • IT value
  • resource complementarity
  • shared IT services
  • INFORMATION-TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE
  • SUSTAINED COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
  • BUSINESS PROCESS REDESIGN
  • FIRM-LEVEL EVIDENCE
  • PERFORMANCE
  • CAPABILITY
  • SYSTEMS
  • PRODUCTIVITY
  • FLEXIBILITY
  • SOFTWARE

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