Systemic capabilities as emergent properties: The source of IT business value

Abstract

IT business value has been mostly conceptualized and examined based on pairwise relationships. This study argues that examining IT business value needs to consider the emergent properties generated from a firm as a whole system. Drawing on systems thinking and the resource-based view of the firm, this study develops a systemic model of IT business value and posits that IT impacts on firm performance when systemic capabilities as emergent properties are generated from the interactions among IT and organizational factors. The performance impact will be positive when IT and organizational factors work together or negative when they work counteractively. Relating IT business value to emergent properties makes a fresh contribution to the literature since IT business value has rarely been conceptualized at the systems level. Further, linking systemic capabilities at the systems level to the valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable conditions will help explain sustained competitive advantage. This paper also contributes to systems thinking by demonstrating its value as a conceptual lens through which the nature of IT business value can be understood.