DEVELOPING A MODEL OF THE GLOBAL AND STRATEGIC IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

In today's intensely competitive world, many firms have developed appl ications of information technology (IT) that provide a significant glo bal competitive advantage. Most evidence of such IT use is anecdotal; the global competitive impact of IT has not been studied from a rigoro us theory building or empirical perspective. This article reports prog ress toward the development of a model (called GLITS) to measure the s trategic global impact of IT on an international firm. The underpinnin gs of the model are based on domestic and international literature; an d it has undergone extensive refinement through statistical evaluation and validation. The model and its accompanying instrument can be used to identify specific strategic IT factors for a company and a conting ency analysis can be conducted to determine the importance of various factors based on organizational characteristics. This foundational mod el should have significant utility for both practitioners and research ers. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.