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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2451/14233
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| Title: | PRODUCTIVITY AND THE ENACTMENT OF A MACRO CULTURE |
| Authors: | Laudon, Kenneth C.
Marr, Kenneth L. |
| Issue Date: | Mar-1994 |
| Publisher: | Stern School of Business, New York University |
| Series/Report no.: | IS-94-01 |
| Abstract: | This paper reports the puzzling results of a study which examined IT
capital investment and productivity at three of the largest IT user
sites in the U.S. for the period 1970-1990: Social Security
Administration (SSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Based on detailed IT investment,
employment, and output data over twenty years, we found that only one
agency had achieved significant productivity benefits, a second agency
had modest results, and a third agency achieved no results whatever.
These results cannot be explained by traditional theories of
productivity of how productivity is produced. We argue that IT-induced
productivity results not simply from strategic choice, nor the operation
of the invisible hand in the market place, nor simply from keen managers
adjusting their organizations to an "objective" environment.
Instead we propose instead a new theory in which productivity benefits
derive from a larger macro-culture enacted by powerful institutions in
an organizational field. We extend this analysis to the larger economy
and examine how this new theory helps us understand recent claims that
IT is finally having positive productivity benefits at the sector level,
and also helps us understand how the current fascination with
reengineering and downsizing may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/14233 |
| Appears in Collections: | IOMS: Information Systems Working Papers
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