Bob Zmud

Professor, Michael F. Price Chair in MIS and George Lynn Cross Research Professor

Michael F. Price College of Business

University of Oklahoma

October 1, 2010

Speakman Hall 200, 1000am – 1130am

Abstract

With information technology (IT) infrastructure serving as a foundation for much of the managerial and operational activities occurring in organizations, investment decisions targeted at enhancing or reengineering IT infrastructures are increasing in frequency, dollar amount and importance. However, current conceptualizations of the nature and value relevance of IT infrastructure remain rather limited, resulting in proponents of IT investment proposals finding it challenging to build convincing business cases for these investments. We offer new conceptualizations of IT infrastructure and its value relevance that move beyond portraying IT infrastructure as a broad collection of technical assets and services to a portrayal of IT infrastructure as a mindfully-determined aggregation of technical operating environments and business operating environments, which in turn engender specific value-adding technical and business capabilities. Next, we apply this conceptualization in synthesizing extant research examining the value-adding role of IT infrastructure across three distinct IT activity domains (solution identification, solutions delivery, and solutions execution), concluding the analysis within each domain with assessments of progress and suggested future research directions. Finally, after reiterating our theoretical contributions, we suggest research directions that apply across all three IT activity domains and discuss the implications of our ideas to practice.

For a copy of the paper, click here.