Antecedents and Consequences of Shared IS-Business Knowledge

Why are some firms able to outperform others using information technology (IT) in an environment where most technologies are readily available to all competing firms? For sometime now, researchers have (at the conceptual level) emphasized the centrality of the quality of the relationship between business and information systems (IS) units. Recent studies have shown that superior relative process performance from IT rests on the degree of shared businessIS knowledge the level of common understanding between the IS unit and the line manager regarding how technology can be used to improve the performance of a specific process. This considerable evidence regarding the role of shared business-IS knowledge as a key capability and performance differentiator, gives rise to another important research question, namely, why are some firms able to develop this important tacit and socially complex capability? We develop and test a theoretical model designed to address this question. We build from literature in organizational learning, knowledge management and strategic management to develop antecedents that focus on the willingness, ability and opportunity to develop shared knowledge. Additionally, we argue that shared knowledge is best conceptualized at two distinct levels—operational and strategic—and that the factors that foster the development of shared knowledge differ across the two levels. Our results indicate that the components of shared knowledge do explain variation in performance. We also find that the primary antecedents for shared strategic knowledge rely more on organizational traits including executive support for IS and organizational learning culture; whereas, the primary antecedents for shared operational knowledge focus on cognitive ability and governance activities. We believe that these results provide insight into how we may better govern and develop organizations to leverage information technology investments.