| This dissertation considers the extent to which public agencies are interested in information technology (IT) for strategic reasons. Organizations--in both the private sector and the public sector--increasingly use information and IT to accomplish day-to-day, operational work activities and to manage the future. To manage the future means to manage proactively: to embrace and shape change. Strategic IT applications change the way business is conducted, either internally or externally, and enable the strategic value of information to emerge.;Applying the Kwon & Zmud (1987) Model of IT Implementation, the purpose of this exploratory study is two-fold: to consider the issue of strategic management of emerging IT within the public sector by (1) considering normative concepts concerning strategic IT planning and management derived from the private sector which have undergone limited empirical testing, especially within a public sector context, and (2) examining how state agencies are presently managing the implementation of document imaging, one of the most prominent emerging information technologies of the 1990s.;Using a multi-method research design, which included a mail survey completed by 234 state agency IT managers nationwide, pre-and post-survey interviews, and the inclusion of secondary data, this study documents that state agencies overall are in the early stages of document imaging implementation but that document imaging can be an extremely worthwhile investment. The findings strongly support a relationship between formal IS strategic planning and a strategic IS orientation. Less definitively, state agencies that engage in formal IS strategic planning are able to foster an environment which is more supportive of the use of IT within state government. The findings also indicate that state agencies need to develop objective performance measures more fully in order to demonstrate both the need for emerging IT implementation and to measure its success. |
