| This study investigates what three large, multinational hospitality companies do in practice when evaluating and making IT investment decisions. This study was launched in an attempt to (1) learn more about how multinational hospitality companies evaluate, prioritize, and select IT investments in the context of hotel GDS; (2) call attention to an important and costly topic in hopes of improving current practices; and (3) fill a noticeable literary void so that future researchers on IT and hotel GDS would have a foundation and starting point.;Using the co-alignment principle as its theoretical underpinning, this study employs a multiple-case design to investigate the resource allocation processes used with respect to information technology and global distribution systems. It looks at how three leading, multinational hospitality firms address IT project/investment evaluation and decision-making, the measures they use, and the frustrations they encounter. These frustrations include problems that arise from a hotel firm's fragmented ownership as well as from hotel executives' inability to measure the results of IT through definitive cause-and-effect relationships. The results of the study provide affirmation of the co-alignment principle and document linkages and co-alignment between strategy and IT. Clearly, decisions involving IT and hotel GDSs require multivariate measures, multidimensional perspectives, and multidisciplinary involvement. However, research from the marketing discipline is noticeably absent in this area. This study concludes that because IT plays an important enabling role for marketing initiatives and is redefining the supply chain of a hotel firm, marketing researchers can no longer stand on the sidelines.;This study also identifies three important constructs, or classes of variables (context, process, and project), the variables comprising each, and their influences on the evaluation and decision-making processes. These findings add to the understanding of IT evaluation, measurement, and decision-making in the context of hotel GDS. This study clarifies the intangible aspects in hopes that useful measures can be developed in subsequent research to quantify and evaluate these costs and benefits. Finally, this study provides a series of prescriptions or recommendations gleaned from the three companies that were the focus of this study in hopes that they will lead to the development of best practices in the hospitality industry. (Abstract shortened by UMI.). |
