How do a company's information technology competences influence its ability to innovate?

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe research that explores how an organization's information technology (IT) competences influence its ability to innovate.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on prior research to describe stages of the innovation process and to identify several IT competences that have been linked to innovation success. Then, examining innovation at three case study sites, it demonstrates how IT competences can influence the success of innovation at various stages of the innovation process.FindingsThe paper finds that IT competences in information and knowledge management, project management, collaboration and communication, and business involvement are likely to improve an organization's ability to innovate.Research limitations/implicationsThe research in this paper is exploratory. The small number of cases limits one's ability to claim that the IT competences one has identified always affect innovation.Practical implicationsThe paper shows that organizations that want to be innovative should cultivate the identified IT competences.Originality/valueFor researchers, the paper proposes a model relating an organization's ability to innovate to its IT competences. For managers, it identifies it competences that should be cultivated to support the process of innovation.

Continuous Innovation: A Literature Review and Future Perspective

“…A fundamental element of CIC [49] Offensive management, hyperlearning process, [62] Knowledge generation and transfer [17] Knowledge generation capability, learning alignment capability, Capability to integrate knowledge, the capability to transfer and diffuse knowledge, and knowledge consolidation capability [63] Knowledge generation, learning alignment, knowledge transferring and diffusion, knowledge retaining [19] Creativity, organization learning, system design [16] Operational effectiveness and strategic flexibility -exploitation and exploration [64] Knowledge management [50] Quality Assurance, Quality Management System [65] Learning, knowledge [70] External Contingency [44] Employee participation (self-determination, a line of command, task/order) [51] Ambidextrous organizations, the synergetic potential of technologies [45] Individual competencies, skill, people abilities [66] Learning, knowledge management [52] System and organization [8] Strategic (Leadership, strategic planning, human resources, process quality, customer satisfaction) and Operational (Customer service, cost management, asset management, quality, productivity) [12] Stakeholders contribution, social capital, infrastructure for corporation, continuous improvement capability, and strategic orientation [53] Excellent in exploitation and exploration and excellent in incremental and radical innovation [39] IT competences, project management, collaboration and communication, knowledge management [40] Concurrent engineering, creative engineering [54] Combination of exploitation and exploration [43] The ability to work together with partners [38] The strategic role of ICT and customer and supplier relation [67] Knowledge management [55] Good operational, efficiency [56] Applying enabling technology creativity, seizing market opportunities, aligning routes to markets, utilizing absorptive capacity, enhancing organizational innovation, staging cultural [46] Ideation capabilities, rules, system [57] Leadership, adopter behavior, communicative adaptor…”

Enterprise technology in support for accounting information systems. an innovation and productivity approach

“…How to gain competitive advantages through AIS? Therefore, those organizations wishing to innovate should cultivate the identification of IT competences (Gordon and Tarafdar, 2007). These same scholars warn that IT and the IS could suffocate creativity and innovation by standardizing, automating and institutionalizing the existing processes and work flows.…”

“…The spread of technology is central to an organization's development and change. According to Gordon and Tarafdar (2007), IT entails information, project management, collaboration, communication, and their involvement helps enterprises improve their ability to innovate, as the technological developments are the result of innovative processes. However, Hevner et al (2004) sustain that there are insufficient constructs, models, methods and tools to represent accurately the link between business and technology.…”

Modelo de Capacidad en Tecnologías de Información en Mipymes Colombianas

“…La capacidad en tecnologías de información: revisión conceptual 1 La habilidad con la que una organización aprovecha las ti se ha estudiado a través de los constructos de recursos en ti, competencias en ti y capacidades de ti, términos que en muchas ocasiones son utilizados indistintamente cuando en realidad son diferentes (Butler & Murphy, 2009;Gordon & Tarafdar, 2007;Mikalef & Pateli, 2016). Los recursos de ti son los bienes tangibles e intangibles de ti que una organización controla; las competencias de ti se refieren a las actividades y rutinas para la gestión de los recursos de ti; y la capacidad de ti se refiere a la aplicación estratégica de recursos y competencias de ti (Mikalef 1 El marco conceptual presentado se basa parcialmente en la tesis de maestría titulada Relación entre Confianza y Capacidad en Tecnologías de Información en mipymes colombianas (Rodríguez-Villabona, 2013).…”