Can IT/IS synergy with agility counter the Productivity Paradox? A perspective from existing literature

As the business environments are changing the world over, executives are thinking of more ways than one to survive competition and avoid elimination. Acceptance of technology and use of IT/IS emerged as one of the means to gain competitive advantage as they equipped a company with improved information sharing, better time management and networking between suppliers and customers. In other words IT/IS had the potential of armoring a firm with the attributes of agility so that firms could handle change and not only adjust to change but bring change within themselves for better adaptability and a competitive advantage. However, as the investment in computers increased skeptics raised doubts about the returns in terms of profit. In this paper literature on the infamous Productivity Paradox has been surveyed and the results are compared with the findings of the available literature on synergies of IT/IS with agility. Although some studies confirm that investments on computer are not returned in balance sheets, the limitations of those studied have been documented. On the other hand the benefits of technology acceptance and synergy of IT/IS for organizational agility have been proved in a vast volume of literature mostly putting forth empirical evidence. This study rejects the productivity paradox as occasional and non-consequential and concludes that use of IT/IS for organizational agility brings an ability to handle change deftly