Researching IT Capabilities and Resources

Abstract

Recent studies have highlighted the utility of the resource-based view (RBV) in understanding the development and application of IT capabilities and resources in organisations. Nevertheless, IS research has inadvertently carried over several fundamental problems and weaknesses with the RBV from reference disciplines. This chapter proposes an integrative theory, model and research propositions that draws on dynamic capabilities theory from the resource-based view of the firm in institutional economics, and commitment theory in institutional sociology, to explain and understand the process by which IT capabilities and resources are developed and applied in organizations. In so doing, this study addresses the paucity of theory on the role of IT capabilities in building and leveraging firm-specific IT resources. The chapter also addresses the aforementioned problems and weaknesses to build a logically consistent and falsifiable theory, with relatively superior explanatory power, for application in both variance and process-based research, whether positivist or interpretivist in orientation.