The World IT Project: History, Trials, Tribulations, Lessons, and Recommendations

Abstract

We conceived The World IT Project, the largest study of its kind in the IS field, more than a decade ago. This ambitious mega project with an enormous global scale was formally launched in 2013 and is expected to finish by 2017. Major publications on the project should appear through 2019. The project responded to the pervasive bias in IS research towards American and Western views. What IS research glaringly lacks is a global view that tries to understand the major IS issues in the world in the context of unique cultural, economic, political, religious, and societal environments. The World IT Project captures the organizational, technological, and individual issues of IT employees across the world and relates them to cultural and organizational factors. This first major paper provides the project’s objectives and history, its general framework, governance, important decision points, and recommendations for future researchers based on lessons learned. Ultimately, we hope to provide a world view of IT issues that will be relevant to stakeholders at the firm, national, and international levels. We also invite scholars to send their recommendations for analyzing and writing papers using our vast database.