The role of information technology in the organization: a review, model, and assessment

This paper reviews and extends recent scholarly and popular literature to p rovide a broad overview of how information technology (IT) impacts organiza tional characteristics and outcomes. First, based on a review of the litera ture, we describe two of the principal performance enhancing benefits of IT : information efficiencies and information synergies, and identify five mai n organizational outcomes of the application of IT that embody these benefi ts. We then discuss the role that IT plays in moderating the relationship b etween organizational characteristics including structure, size, learning, culture, and interorgranizational relationships and the most strategic outc omes, organizational efficiency and innovation. Throughout we discuss the l imitations and possible negative consequences of the use of IT and close by considering several key areas for future research. (C) 2001 Elsevier Scien ce Inc. All rights reserved.