Leveraging IT in Slack Resources Redeployment: A Development towards Resource Fluidity

Slack resources have important strategic and managerial implications in an organization and IT plays an important role in redeploying them. Yet, this area has largely been overlooked by the IS community. This study, through a novel theoretical lens of resource fluidity, aims to answer how organizations leverage IT to redeploy slack resources. We conduct a case study at two leading manufacturers that have just gone through a strategic transformation, and interviewed 78 informants from them. Analysis of the data unveils two process models of fluidity development. The first process, which is guided by a centralization strategy and led by IT, features a small-win cycle. The second process, which is guided by a decentralization strategy and led by business, features a big-win cycle. The study contributes to the IS literature by bringing in the slack-resource perspective and unveiling how IT redeploys slack resources by enabling resource fluidity.