Perception of the role of information technology function in organizations: toward the development of a measure

The role (and impact) of IT/IS in organizations is becoming more and more critical. The perception of the "role of IT/IS function in an organization" could have a direct impact on the effectiveness of development of IT capabilities. There has been no measure to date to capture this perception in an organization at the individual level. This paper reports the development of a scale to measure "the perception of the role of IT/IS function in organizations." Three independent studies involving more than 200 participants provided initial evidence of the construct validity of the new measure with respect to its factor structure, validity, and reliability. The paper discusses the preliminary development of the measure and its implications for the IT development environment/ effort in organizations.