Fatores de adoção da tecnologia da informação e a sua relação com os benefícios intangíveis percebidos pelos gestores da organização

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) investments have grown in recent decades, both in importance for companies and in number of published articles. Academic studies show the existence of failures in decision-making on IT investments, difficulties in understanding the IT adoption factors in justification of investments, inability of analysis to identify the intangible impacts of IT and the gap in the understanding of the relation between IT adoption factors and benefits generated for the organization. In this context, this research proposes to identify and analyze the relation between IT adoption factors and intangible benefits perceived by the organization's managers. In order to achieve this goal it was developed a literature review involving the knowledge related to the process of IT investment and the intangible benefits generated for the organization. The IT adoption factors related to people; to the company’s environment; to IT with organizational strategy; and to expected benefits of IT were identified. Intangible benefits perceived by the organization's managers have been related in the external environment, to customers; competitors; suppliers; products and services, and in the internal environment to the employees; organizational processes; and information and communication. The study was developed by conducting multiple case studies in three companies in the fashion retail industry that have a head office and a shop network. In total 24 interviews were conducted, where nine of those were episodic interviews based on an interview guide to identify the IT adoption factors that participated in the process for the realization of IT investment, and plus 15 semi-structured interviews to identify the intangible benefits perceived by managers of each organization area. The results reveal the emergence of new IT adoption factors and also the non-occurrence of IT adoption factors, considering the theoretical foundations examined. At the analyzed organizations, the executives’ perception shows that many intangible benefits contained in the conceptual framework have not been confirmed. However new intangible benefits not mentioned by the authors emerged. Relations between IT adoption factors and the perceived intangible benefits related to the following IT adoption factors were identified: interest of decision makers; structure and organizational support; processes and organizational controls; supporting the strategic goals; IT alignment with the strategy, and expected IT benefits. The research provides evidence that the decision makers’ interest in the achievement of IT investments is perceived by the majority of the organization's managers; the expected strategic aims are realized after accomplishment of investments; expected intangible benefits of IT are different from intangible benefits perceived by the organization managers; managers with less time in the company realize less intangible benefits generated compared to senior managers in the company. The found evidences enable executives to better understand the process of investment in IT by identifying the relation between IT adoption factors with the intangible benefits perceived and generated for the organization.