Shaping Agility through Digital Options: Reconceptualizing the Role of Information Technology in Contemporary Firms

By V. Sambamurthy, Anandhi S. Bharadwaj, Varun Grover. MIS Q., 2003

3,452 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Agility is vital to the innovation and competitive performance of firms in contemporary business environments. Firms are increasingly relying on information technologies, including process, knowledge, and communication technologies, to enhance their agility. The purpose of this paper is to broaden understanding about the strategic role of IT by examining the nomological network of influences through which IT impacts firm performance. By drawing upon recent thinking in the strategy, entrepreneurship, and IT management literatures, this paper uses a multitheoretic lens to argue that information technology investments and capabilities influence firm performance through three significant organizational capabilities (agility, digital options, and entrepreneurial alertness) and strategic processes (capability-building, entrepreneurial action, and coevolutionary adaptation). We also propose that these dynamic capabilities and strategic processes impact the ability of firms to launch many and varied competitive actions and that, in turn, these competitive actions are a significant antecedent of firm performance. Through our theorizing, we draw attention to a significant and reframed role of IT as a digital options generator in contemporary firms.

Subfields: Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fd3f8a3e8828631afe02026ff72a2e2e28904d27

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

Developing a resilient supply chain strategy during ‘boom’ and ‘bust’ (2016, background): “…that resilience can be enhanced through the management of interrelated operations between multiple tiers of suppliers and customers, further emphasising the need for high levels of visibility in the supply chain (Azevedo practitioners’ insights (Juttner 2005; Scholten, Scott, and Fynes 2014).”
Dynamic Capability Building in Service Value Networks for Achieving Service Innovation (2009, methodology): “However, Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj, and Grover (2003) argue the need for capability-building leveraged resources over resource picking for the sake of supernormal performance.”
Do Auction Parameters Affect Buyer Surplus in E‐Auctions for Procurement? (2007, background): “Our work is also related to the supply chain and information systems literature that studies the implications of IT for electronic integration, organizational capabilities, and firm performance (Bardhan, Whitaker, and Mithas 2006; Brynjolfsson and Hitt 1998; Mithas, Krishnan, and Fornell 2005; Mukho”
The impact of IT capabilities on firm performance: The mediating roles of absorptive capacity and supply chain agility (2013, neutral): “[58] propose that IT capabilities are antecedents of higher-order business capabilities, including knowledge management and agility capabilities.”
Information Technology and Business-Level Strategy: Toward an Integrated Theoretical Perspective (2013, background): “Flexibility would seem to be an economic benefit—whether or not enabled by IT (as conceptualized in Sambamurthy et al. 2003 and operationalized in Ross et al. 2006).”
Plant Information Systems, Manufacturing Capabilities, and Plant Performance (2006, background): “Consistent with this theory, the ability of firms to leverage their IT capabilities to develop closer relationships and create agile and flexible competencies represents dynamic capabilities which can lead to improved customer value (Sambamurthy 2000; Sambamurthy et al. 2003; Wheeler 2002).”
How can SMEs successfully navigate VUCA environment: The role of agility in the digital transformation era (2022, methodology): “This measure was adapted from previous studies (Overby et al., 2006; Ravichandran, 2018; Sambamurthy et al., 2003) and it includes the emerging technologies discussed in recent researches (Cassetta et al., 2020; Papadopoulos et al., 2020).”
Impact of Organizational Culture Values on Organizational Agility (2017, background): “[4], OA is measured as a multidimensional composite shaped by three dimensions: customer agility, partnering agility and operational agility and a total of eleven items.”
Organizational culture and leadership in ERP implementation (2008, background): “Introduction Enterprise resource planning system (ERP), as a type III IS innovation, has strategic relevance for the firm because their integration into the core business processes or strategies can directly impact the firm’s performance (Swanson 1994; Sambamurthy et al. 2003; Sample 1998).”
How a Firm's Competitive Environment and Digital Strategic Posture Influence Digital Business Strategy (2013, background): “In a highly turbulent industry, the dominant position of incumbents may be destroyed by rivals or new entrants who own superior knowledge about the market and/or firm resource configuration (Sambamurthy et al. 2003).”
Big data analytics capability in supply chain agility (2019, neutral): “Sambamurthy et al. (2003) argue that organizations are increasingly investing in IT capabilities.”
Service Innovation: A Service-Dominant Logic Perspective (2015, background): “The need for such structural flexibility and adaptability relates to the ongoing discussion in the IS field on digital infrastructure and the business agility it facilitates (Sambamurthy et al. 2003; Tilson et al. 2010).”