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Management of Information Technology Effectiveness in Brazilian Companies

Management of Information Technology Effectiveness in Brazilian Companies
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Author(s): Fernando José Barbin Laurindo (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil), Marly Monteiro de Carvalho (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)and Tamio Shimizu (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Copyright: 2002
Pages: 3
Source title: Issues & Trends of Information Technology Management in Contemporary Organizations
Source Editor(s): Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A. (Information Resources Management Association, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-930708-39-6.ch066
ISBN13: 9781930708396
EISBN13: 9781466641358

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) has an important role in the strategic function of the leading companies in the competitive markets. Particularly, e-commerce and e-business have been highlighted among IT applications (Porter, 2001; Evans and Wurster, 1999). The basic function for understanding IT is in acquiring a competitive advantage at the value chain (Porter & Millar, 1985. Effectiveness, in the context of this paper, is the measurement of the capacity of the outputs of an Information System or of an IT application to fulfill the requirements of the company and to achieve its goals, making this company more competitive. In a few words, effectiveness can be understood as the ability of “do the right thing” (Laurindo, 2000; Walrad and Moss, 1993; Maggiolini, 1981). Several problems have been discussed concerned with IT projects results in effectiveness of their management. In spite of different approaches about the “productivity paradox”, there is a general consensus about the difficult of finding evidences of returns over the investments in IT (Willcocks and Lester, 1997; Brynjolfsson, 1993; Strassman, 1990). The evaluation of IT effectiveness allows the strategic alignment of objectives of implemented systems and their results with the company business vision (Laurindo, 2000; Laurindo and Shimizu, 2000; Hirscheim and Smithson, 1998).

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