Information technology exploitation and exploration in a fast growing economy

Organizational agility has recently received a great deal of attention as it is seen as a significant business capability which allows firms to respond flexibly to today's rapidly changing business environment. In particular, this capability deems essential under a fast growing economy, such as China. However, it is still unclear as to how and why specific information technology (IT) investments can enable this capability. Drawing upon the idea of organizational IT exploitation and exploration, this study investigates how firms can create IT-enabled organizational agility. The study also identifies various types of IT resources by adopting two well-established IT resource classification schemes in the literature. A model was developed with several predictions about the relationships among IT resources, IT capabilities, and organizational agility. The proposed model was tested through a largescale field survey with multiple respondents in Chinese enterprises. The results of structural equation model analyses indicate that specific IT resources are significant driving forces behind each type of IT capability, leading to organizational agility.