Information Technology Impact and Role of Firm Age and Export Activity: An Emerging Economy Context

TLDR: In this paper, the authors explored the role of contextual factors such as firm age and export activity in information technology impact following contingency theory perspective and revealed that the impact of information technology might be either contingent or non-contingent, subject to specific organizational outcome.

Abstract: This study seeks to deepen the understanding of research in business value of information technology by examining the role of contextual factors such as firm age and export activity in information technology impact following contingency theory perspective. The study is set in India and provides generalization in a new setting of emerging economy. An empirical study was conducted using data from 320 firms between 2007 and 2010. The results indicate that information technology investments enable firms to reduce their operational costs without contingencies related to firm age and export activity. However, the impact of information technology investment for improving profit is contingent on export levels such that the impact is higher for high exports firms. This work contributes to the literature by examining firm age and export activity as contextual factors and reveals the impact of information technology might be either contingent or non-contingent, subject to specific organizational outcome.