Empirical Study On Information Technology Infusion And Its Impact On Organizational Performance

We has entered a new stage of the infusion of informatization and industrialization and many firms have adopted Information technology (IT) in China, however the application performance of IT has usually been far from expectation. Many researches proved that the reason for"IT investment black hole"lies in that IT is actually not effectively fused by the firm after invested(adopted), which means an"assimilation gap"between adoption and infusion. How to promote the infusion of IT within the firm has become an urgent problem for the enterprise information construction.Scholars have conducted a lot of research about the infusion and application of IT. Reviewing existing theory, the research of IT infusion is still in its beginning stage. Many scholars analyzed the IT infusion in the study of the entire process of IT absorption, but these studies focused on adoption or/and implementation stage, lacking analysis on the IT infusion process after adoption. Some scholars which researched IT infusion mostly focus on how to promote effective IT infusion before the adoption, rarely someone research the organizations how to further promote the IT infusion in order to play the potential of IT under the implementation, established IS solutions. On the other hand, the definition and meaning of IT infusion have not been a unified in the existing research, lacking the detailed and systematic analysis on the specific process of IT infusion and the factors, they thus can not conform to the complexity and dynamics of IT infusion process, and hard to reveal the IT infusion impact on the organizational performance. Therefore, it is necessary to establish more comprehensive theoretical framework and explore the mechanism of IT infusion.This dissertation studied how to foster the deeper infusion of IT in order to improve organizational performance from process perspective, mainly focusing on the flowing four contents: first, the concept and dimension of IT infusion; second, analysis the relationships of the various levels of IT infusion, revealing the internal relations of the various levels of IT infusion; third, the influential factors of IT infusion; fourth, the impact mechanism of IT infusion on promoting organizational performance.For details, the innovation points of this dissertation mainly are represented by the following aspects:Firstly, this dissertation proposed the concept of IT infusion and its three-dimensional model from process perspective. The model conducted a comprehensive description of the infusion process of the IT and organization, reflected the complexity and multi-faceted of organizational IT infusion. It extended a new research perspective for IS field, resolved the problem of existing literature lacking in study on the IT infusion after implement, propitious to a better understanding of the enterprises IT infusion process , laid a theoretical foundation for the in-depth analysis of the relationship between the IT infusion and organizational performance.This dissertation discussed IT infusion from the perspective of the dynamic process, analyzed the definition perspective of IT infusion, put forward the concept of IT infusion, pointing out its dynamics, hierarchy and continuity. At the same time, it analyzed of IT infusion process based on existing relevant research, and built the dynamic process model of IT infusion from the breadth, depth and level. The model reflected the complexity and multi-faceted of organizational IT infusion, then deeply discussed the three dimensions and suggested that the three dimensions were mutually independent as well as interaction with each other. The breadth dimension reflects the diffusion of IT infusion in organizational scope, the depth dimension primarily reflects the evolution of the way in the organizational IT infusion, and the level dimension reflects the adjustment and mutual penetration of the elements between information technology and organizational structure in the various levels. The study conducted a comprehensive and multi-faceted description of the infusion process of the IT and organization, propitious to a better understanding of the enterprises IT infusion process, laid a theoretical foundation for the in-depth analysis of the relationship between the IT infusion and organizational performance.Secondly, this dissertation revealed which kind of factors would influence each level of IT infusion, and explained the reasons why IT infusion of firms would differ to some extent and the relationships of each level. It considered the different characteristics of different levels of IT infusion, effectively overcame the current researches which can not master the factor differences in the different levels of IT infusion.This dissertation suggested that, due to the participants difference in each level of IT infusion, different factors would make effect. On the basis of reviewing the influential factors of IT infusion, combined with the relevant researches of IT infusion, from the personnel who the three levels of IT infusion refer to, it suggested the influential factors of each level and analyzed the mechanism of each factor. The level relational model pointed out that strategic alignment is positively related to business process fit; business process fit is positively to employee acceptance, strategic alignment is positively related to employee acceptance. The factor model of IT infusion pointed out that the top management's knowledge of the relations of IT and business, IT strategic position, top management's IT strategic capabilities, CIO's business strategic capabilities, management communication of IT and business department of the firm are positively related to strategic alignment; the management support, business process reengineering, innovative, organization communication, employee involvement are positively related to business process fit; the confirmation, perceived usefulness, satisfaction, task technology fit, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control are positively related to s employee acceptance. The study on the influential factors of each level of IT infusion can help the firm find out the weakness of its factors, and thus adopt measures to make improvement aiming to these shortcomings.Thirdly, this dissertation revealed the mechanism of IT infusion on organizational performance, built on the concept model of the impact of IT infusion on organizational performance. This study investigated the effects of three levels of IT infusion on different constructs of organizational performance, expanded the research ideas of IT investment on organizational performance, and looked for the working point of the IT infusion on organizational performance, pointed out the direction for enterprise to improve organizational performance.This dissertation suggested that the IT investment improved organizational performance through the effective IT infusion. This paper argued that the impact of IT infusion on organizational performance was not only reflected in financial performance, also reflected in the improvement of internal process performance, and improving staff quality and customer satisfaction within the organization related non-financial performance. Therefore, it selected the balanced score card to evaluate of organizational performance. According the infusion level model, it analyzed in-depth the influences of the strategic alignment, business process fit and employee acceptance on the financial performance, customer performance, internal processes and learning and growth performance of the role of performance of the balanced score card. This study expanded the research ideas of IT investment on organizational performance, looked for the working point of the IT infusion on organizational performance, and pointed out the direction for enterprise to improve organizational performance.Fourthly, this study constructed an empirical model to verify the authenticity of the model and assumptions. First, based on existing research to build the measurement system of IT infusion, factors and organizational performance, and verified the model by research data. The results show that most of the proposed assumptions in the models are effectiveness, it find out the key factors of each level of IT infusion and pointed out that strategic alignment is the key to improving organizational performance.Based on existing research to build the measurement system of IT infusion, factors and organizational performance, and verified the model by research data.The results showed that most of the proposed assumptions were valid; it proved the validity of the proposed model and underlying assumptions. Based on the results, it analyzed the factors'total effect of each level of IT infusion, found out the key factors of each level of IT infusion; also compared three levels of the total effect on organizational performance, found that from the total impact on organizational performance, the total effect of strategic alignment is greatest, followed by the business process fit and employee acceptance. This conclusion showed that if there was just IT infusion influence positively and significantly on organizational performance, IT can only enhance firm performance when it is accepted and fully utilized and integrated with organization. But the three levels of IT infusion had different effects on the four dimensions of organizational performance. Strategic alignment is the key for improving the organizational performance. Firms should promote IT infusion in order to improve organizational performance according to their own situation and conditions.