Corporate productivity and shared information technology

Abstract

Corporations have made large investments in information technology over the past thirty years. The current trend is to continue this investment in shared information technology (SIT), including such tools as electronic mail, distributed databases, teleconferencing, and group decision support systems. However, investment in SIT may not be appropriate for or beneficial to every company. This paper suggests that in order for SIT to be successfully implemented within a firm the corporate culture must be one that supports the sharing of information across traditional organizational boundaries. Further, the particular SIT tool selected must allow the same type of communication to take place as does the traditional communications mechanism that it is intended to replace. General guidelines are given for firms concerning conditions under which high return SIT can be implemented.