Essays on Strategic IT Management : Understanding Strategic Positioning in IT Management and Assessing the Economic Potential of IT

My thesis investigates the changing role of Information Technology (IT) and the management thereof in modern enterprises. Especially in light of the ongoing trend to service orientation and industrialization of IT, executives responsible for a company’s IT are challenged to show and manage the unique value contribution of IT in ever more digitized business processes. From this background, I motivate two research themes. Looking at strategic positioning in IT management, I introduce a set of four studies that mainly rely on case study research. For the second research stream, assessing the economic potential of IT, I introduce two studies that rely on conceptual modeling and secondary data analysis. For the research stream on strategic positioning, the findings of my work suggest that the group processes needed for strategic planning in IT are a key determinant of planning success. Moreover, the research shows the domains, aspects, instruments, and processes that are necessary to position a contemporary IT department strategically. The second research stream develops a both theoretically and empirically grounded model that highlights how to capture the economic potential of IT. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is used as an example to illustrate the models potential. Both research streams, individually and taken together, highlight how management of IT has changed from a technology focused pattern to managing a business within a business. My thesis provides IT executives with tools and practices they need to excel in this environment. This helps them to attain alignment with the corporate strategy while maintaining their agility, which, ultimately, leads to the value proposition of IT in business. The research I conducted extends our understanding of Information Systems in business in three ways. Firstly, it is amongst the first approaches that actually account for the changes in the role of contemporary IT departments. Secondly, it acknowledges the social and systemic perspective of planning processes and shows how it can increase our understanding of planning and planning success in IT management. Thirdly, my research links process theories on IT value to an actual model that highlights how IT’s capabilities constitute economic potential