With the increased importance of IT in organizations, business managers are now expected to show stronger leadership in regard to its deployment of IT in organizations. This requires greater focus on their capability to understand and use IT resources effectively. This paper explores the concept of IT competence of business managers as a contributor to their intention to champion IT within their organizations. Based on the knowledge literature, IT competence is defined as “ the set of IT-related knowledge and experience that a business manager possesses.” The relationship between IT knowledge, IT experience, and championing IT is tested empirically using Structural Equation Modeling with LISREL. Four hundred and four business managers from two large insurance organizations were surveyed. Specific areas of IT knowledge and IT experience were first identified and the first half of the data set was utilized to assess the measurement properties of the instrument in a confirmatory analysis. The contribution of IT knowledge and IT experience to their intention to champion IT was assessed using the second half of the data set. The results show that IT knowledge and IT experience together explain 34% of the variance in managers' intentions to champion IT. Recommendations are given as to how organizations can enhance their business managers IT knowledge and experience to achieve stronger IT leadership from line people.
A major problem confronting organizations is that they make large investments in information technologies (IT) that, in many cases, underperform following adoption because their features are underutilized. In information systems (IS) research, there is a need to develop a better understanding of the process by which individuals make new use of IT features. Using a grounded theory approach, we develop such an understanding by closely examining how individuals change their IT use following initial adoption. Based on analyzing interview data and expanding on extant literature to refine our results, we propose a construct called "enhanced use", which refers to novel ways of employing IT features. We conceptualize enhanced use as having distinct forms (using a formerly unused set of available features, using an IT for additional tasks, and/or using extensions of IT features and attributes). Our analysis reveals that these forms may differ in terms of their attributes (locus of innovation, extent of extensive use, and adaptation). Our study uncovers patterns of use that reveal the roles played by task characteristics, knowledge, and the IT type in shaping enhanced use. Thus, this study heeds repeated calls to theorize about use by proposing a novel and rich conceptualization of post-adoption use.
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