Recognizing IT-induced opportunities : Conceptual, Organizational, and Individual Perspectives on a Central Challenge for Information Management in Modern Organizations

Increasing digitalization in individual, organizational and societal contexts provides significant opportunities and challenges for all types of organizations. The capability of recognizing opportunities provided by Information Technology has been indicated as a central precondition for successful digital transformation. Yet, this capability has never been a focal area within Information Systems Research and therefore lacks conceptual and methodological underpinnings. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, this cumulative dissertation investigates organizational recognition of IT-induced opportunities from conceptual, organizational, and individual viewpoints. The capability of recognizing IT-induced opportunities is found to be dependent on a set of interconnected factors spanning the individual domains of skills and attitudes as well as the organizational domains of normative, operative, tactical, and strategic structures and processes. A framework providing a generic and holistic description tool for the involved microprocesses is developed to provide conceptual underpinnings for the capability of recognizing IT-induced potential. On the organizational level, a prototypical method for supporting the recognition of IT-induced opportunities is constructed; furthermore, factors relevant to the capability of recognizing IT-induced opportunities are identified and structured in accordance with traditional management perspectives. Finally, on the individual level, characteristics constituting individual digital transformation readiness are identified, and measurement models for the construct are developed.