Despite significant progress in evaluating the productivity payoffs from information technology (IT), the inability of traditional firm-level economic analysis to fully account for the intangible impacts of IT has led to calls for a more inclusive and comprehensive approach to measuring IT business value. In response to this call, we develop a process-oriented model to assess the impacts of IT on critical business activities within the value chain. Our model incorporates corporate goals for IT and management practices as key determinants of realized IT payoffs. Using survey data from 304 business executives worldwide, we found that corporate goals for IT can be classified into one of four types: unfocused, operations-focus, market-focus and dual-focus. Our analysis confirms that these goals are a useful indicator of payoffs from IT in that executives in firms with more focused goals for IT perceive greater payoffs from IT across the value chain. In addition, we found that management practices such as strategic alignment and IT investment evaluation contribute to higher perceived levels of IT business value.- 1-

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through Information Technology Assets Claims that information technology can be a source of competitive advantage, which populated business literature in the late 1980s, have been largely discredited. Nonetheless, business executives continue to look for ways to apply information technology strategically to their businesses. Reporting on a two-year study of IT management practices, the authors note that some firms do appear to generate competitive advantage from their IT, but the advantage results from their IT capabilities, not from their IT applications. Specifically, a firm delivers value from IT by building and leveraging three assets: highly competent IT human resources, a reusable technology infrastructure, and a strong IT-business partner relationship. These three assets are interrelated in the sense that they tend to strengthen- or weaken- one another. Together, they allow a firm to apply information technology to strategic business needs faster and more cost effectively than the competition. This paper describes the characteristics of strong IT assets and offers strategies for developing them. Developing Long-term Competitiveness through Information Technology Assets

Information systems researchers have a long tradition of drawing on theories from disciplines such as economics, computer science, psychology, and general management and using them in their own research. Because of this, the information systems field has become a rich tapestry of theore-1 Jane Webster was the accepting senior editor for this paper. MISQ REVIEW tical and conceptual foundations. As new theories are brought into the field, particularly theories that have become dominant in other areas, there may be a benefit in pausing to assess their use and contribution in an IS context. The purpose of this paper is to explore and critically evaluate use of the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) by IS researchers. The paper provides a brief review of resourcebased theory and then suggests extensions to make the RBV more useful for empirical IS research. First, a typology of key IS resources is presented, and these are then described using six traditional resource attributes. Second, we emphasize the particular importance of looking at both resource complementarity and moderating factors when studying IS resource effects on firm performance. Finally, we discuss three considerations that IS researchers need to address when using the RBV empirically. Eight sets of propositions are advanced to help guide future research. Keywords: Resource-based view, organizational impacts of IS, information systems resources, competitive advantage, IS strategic planning, information resource management

lost the ability to think or speak coherently words which the tongue has to employ in order to express any kind of daily opinion decompose in my mouth like rotten mushrooms.” Hugo von Hofmannstahl

This paper aims to clarify the concept of business models, its usages, and its roles in the Information Systems domain. A review of the literature shows a broad diversity of understandings, usages, and places in the firm. The paper identifies the terminology or ontology used to describe a business model, and compares this terminology with previous work. Then the general usages, roles and potential of the concept are outlined. Finally, the connection between the business model concept and Information Systems is described in the form of eight propositions to be analyzed in future work.

Alignment of application architecture to business architecture is a central problem in the design, acquisition and implementation of information systems in current large-scale information-processing organizations. Current research

From 1990 through 1998, First American Corporation (FAC) changed its corporate strategy from a traditional banking approach to a customer relationship -oriented strategy that placed FACs customers at the center of all aspects of the company s operations. The transformation made FAC an innovative leader in the financial services industry. This case study describes FACs transformation and the way in which a data warehouse called VISION helped make it happen. FACs experiences suggest lessons for managers who plan to use technology to support changes that are designed to significantly improve organizational performance. In addition, they raise interesting questions about the means by which information technology can be used to gain competitive advantage. Keywords: Data warehousing, corporate stra- tegy, organizational transformation, customer relationship management, IS management ISRL Categories: DA08, DD01, HB19, UF

A coherent description  of an  enterprise architecture  provides insight,  enables communication among stakeholders and guides complicated change processes. Unfortunately,  so far no enterprise architecture description language exists that fully enables integrated enterprise modelling,  because for each architectural domain,  architects use their own modelling techniques and concepts,  tool support,  visualisation techniques,  etc. In this paper we outline such an integrated language and we identify and study concepts that relate architectural domains. In our language concepts for  describing the relationships  between architecture descriptions at the business,  application,  and technology levels play a central role, related to the ubiquitous problem of business–IT alignment,  whereas for each architectural domain we conform to existing languages or standards such as UML. In particular,  usage of services offered by one layer to another plays an important role in relating the behaviour aspects of the layers. The structural aspects of the layers are linked through the interface concept,  and the information aspects through realisation relations. Concepts for Modelling Enterprise Architectures A coherent description  of an  enterprise architecture  provides insight,  enables communication among stakeholders and guides complicated change processes. Unfortunately,  so far no enterprise architecture description language exists that fully enables integrated enterprise modelling,  because for each architectural domain,  architects use their own modelling techniques and concepts,  tool support,  visualisation techniques,  etc. In this paper we outline such an integrated language and we identify and study concepts that relate architectural domains. In our language concepts for  describing the relationships  between architecture descriptions at the business,  application,  and technology levels play a central role,

The so called "productivity paradox" associated with information technology remains the focus of active research in information systems. One explanation involves the dearth of useful measures to assess the value of IT investments. A review of the predominant approaches to such measurement reveals a number of serious weaknesses and fundamental limitations. The research described in this paper addresses these limitations through a complementary methodology termed virtual process measurement (VPM). Through VPM, assessments of IT value are determined through the measurement of computer-based process representations (i.e., virtually), as opposed to measuring their real counterparts in ongoing organizations; this approach affords a number of advantages that are unattainable through extant techniques. In this paper, the VPM methodology is discussed in considerable detail, and examples from industry practice are used to demonstrate the use and utility of this approach. The paper closes with a ...