An Empirical Study Of Relationship Between Complementary Resources, IT Capability And Firm Performance Based On RBV

IT investment and implementation is always an important portion in an enterprise. It is therefore necessary for an enterprise to evaluate its benefit of such investment. Meanwhile, there exists myth and arguments for relationships among IT investment and corresponding benefits. The scholars based on resource-based view propose that IT investment can improve firm performance when it transforms into excellent IT capability, in other words, IT capability model acts as an intermediate-variable-based model between IT investment and firm performance. It is an important issue for power of explanation of such research frameworks, for IT effects upon firm performance. On the other hand, Powell and Melville etc argue that IT investment does not necessarily to improve firm performance, but when it is effectively combined with business processes, organizational culture and other complementary resources, it can improve firm performance significantly.Based on the theoretical and practical background, the core questions are proposed:How to transfer IT investment into IT capability to improve firm performance, the influence of complementary resources between IT and firm performance.According to the above questions, the resource-based theory is applied in the study to discuss the content and value of IT capability, it includes IT infrastructure capability, IT human capability, and IT-enabled intangible capability, firstly, the relationship between IT investment and firm performance is analyzed to modify the existing research model, secondly, the influence of complementary resources to IT capability is studied, finally based on the perspective of resource-based view of firm and resources-capability-performance research framework, an integration model of IT business value is proposed to study the relationships among complementary resources, IT capability and firm performance. Structural equation modelling is used to analyze the data of 152 domestic firms, results show that IT investment indirectly firm performance through IT capability, and the IT-enabled intangible capability is the key factor to effect the business performance, complementary resources are important driving forces for the IT capability, meanwhile, complementary business resources can directly improve firm performance. If firms want to form excellent IT capability to improve performance, they have to pay attention to complementary investment including business processes, culture, team, partner relationships and so on, as they invest in IT.