IT-enabled Business Agility: A Multiple Paths Contingency Model

Description

Integrating the fragmented literature on information technology (IT) resources, business agility and organizational outcome creation mechanisms, the proposed study theorizes and empirically investigates how organizations can create business agility by deploying various IT resources. To this end, a model has been developed with several predictions about the relationships among IT, business agility, environmental dynamism and firm performance. The model and predictions will be tested through a large-scale field survey. The study will benefit academics by providing a theoretical basis to better understand the strategic role of IT in contemporary businesses. The findings of the study will also provide guidelines for practitioners to strategically and selectively focus on investing and deploying specific IT resources that fit their business context to create business agility. Additionally, the findings of the study will be particularly beneficial to firms operating in regions that are experiencing rapid growth with high market uncertainty, such as China.