Risk and IT factors that Contribute to Competitive Advantage and Corporate Performance

Existing research has established determinants of an IT-enabled strategy for competitive advantage which include IT Leadership, IT Skill, and IT Infrastructure (Sambamurthy 2000; Dehning and Stratopoulos 2003). Although research is emerging to demonstrate risk’s impact on competitive advantage, it still remains focused on mitigation and avoidance as its contribution (McGaughey et al. 1994). This study leverages and expands existing research in the area in three ways: first, it establishes higher-level constructs defined as Technical Leadership, Technical Skill, and Technical Infrastructure. Doing so affords us to have a more robust framework to accommodate additional technical capabilities and assets a firm possesses such as risk. Second, unique information to explain the individual impact of IT-centric and Risk-centric determinants on competitive advantage are uncovered. Third, the combined impact of risk determinants and IT determinants are analyzed and contrasted by creating interaction indices for both.