Information Technology and Organizational Learning: An Empirical Analysis

Organizational learning theory suggests that organizations “learn from experience” and are thus able to adapt their range of potential behaviors through the processing of information. Our research integrates this perspective with information systems economics theory and empirically tests whether new information technology investments contribute to an organization’s ability to learn from experience. Based on a crosssectional time series analysis of data spanning 48 months and six independently operated payment processing facilities owned by a major international financial institution, our results indicate that IT has a significant positive impact on the rate at which organizations can translate learning from cumulative experience into incremental productivity gains.