Week9_Politics and IT Investments_Ada

Politics and Information Technology Investments in the U.S. Federal Government in 2003-2016

Motivation：

The U.S. federal government spends a considerable amount of tax revenues in IT every year. Hence, taxpayers, who pay for these IT expenditures, would ask whether these investments are being well made. However, information systems (IS) researchers to date have paid little attention to what influences IT investments and management in the government sector (reference anonymized for blind review), an issue that would be significant to policy makers and the public in general as well as private-sector IT industries.

Research Questions:

This study investigates how the national politics affects IT investment profiles in U.S. federal agencies. They hypothesize that a federal agency’s capacity-building IT investments are associated with (i) legislative approval for the chief executive, (ii) government dividedness, and (iii) the agency’s ideological characteristic.

Main Findings:

With a panel dataset from 135 federal agencies and bureaus in 2003-2016, the empirical analyses demonstrate that the national politics has a significant impact on their IT investment profiles. They find that a federal agency is more likely to make capacity-building IT investments when its chief executive is blessed with legislative approval, when the federal government is more united, and when it is ideologically more moderate. In sum, their study supports the central proposition that in order to invest more in major capacity-building IT development, the federal agencies need to secure compelling policy mandates and political legitimacy from Congress for implementation of strategic policy initiatives..

Contributions:

They contribute to the IS literature by demonstrating that budget allocation decisions between IT development and maintenance in governments are affected by political environments. They offer several policy prescriptions in federal IT management for policymakers and practitioners in the public sector.