Critical organizational challenges in delivering business value from IT: in search of hybrid IT value models

This study forms part of a larger research project to explore and analyze the perceived value of IS and the organizational competencies needed to deliver that value. By identifying and evaluating the challenges faced by Lebanese organizations, this paper provides empirical evidence in support of hybrid models of IT value. While process-based IT value models provide an explanation for “how” IT value is created, and what steps occur to create that outcome, they lack the contingency theory found in variance models, which explain “why” IT value is realized, and what variable moderate that outcome. On the other hand, variance models alone are also ill-equipped to explain the greater scope and impacts of IT investments. Hybrid models combine both process and variance perspectives to provide a more comprehensive theory of IT value realization. Structured interviews are conducted with the Chief Information Officers (CIO) of 36 medium and large size Lebanese organizations to discover the challenges faced in delivering value from IT investments. Of the 14 challenges discovered, seven point to the need for process orientated competencies and these include “Change Management”, “Organizational Readiness”, “Relationship Management”, “Benefits Management”, “IT Governance”, “IT Architecture Management”, and “IT Talent Management”. The other seven challenges are variance oriented and point to the factors that inhibit or enable deriving IT value, and these include internal factors, such as: “Family Business Ownership”, and “Budgetary Constraints”, and other external factors, such as: “Political/Social/Economic Instability”, “Telecommunications/Bandwidth Issues”, “Lack of Governmental IT Laws”, “Local Cultural Issues”, and “Immature Local Suppliers/Vendors”. Rather than continuing an already-saturated research conversation about the dependent variable, “IT Value” and whether IT creates business value, this study contributes to the independent variable research stream - the investigation of “how to derive value from IT, and “when and under which conditions” value is realized, and for conceiving a Hybrid model explaining the IT value proposition.