Abstract
Authors have identified many different reasons why companies invest into IT and there has been much discussion of how IT can generate value. This paper adds to the discussion of IT value generation by investigating investments in business software for the support of business processes in Swiss SMEs. In an empirical survey on the future IT investment for process support, 917 questionnaires were collected and analysed. In a first step, using exploratory factor analysis, two factors representing different sets of business software modules were identified: (1) basic modules and (2) specialized modules. In a second step, using cluster analysis, we identified four typical characteristic company profiles regarding investments in business software: (1) the IT convinced, (2) the IT differentiators, (3) the IT sceptics, and (4) the IT pragmatists. To further explore and profile the clusters, we ran several bivariate analyses with selected questions from the questionnaire. This study has both theoretical and managerial relevance as it helps to understand firm attitudes towards investments and business software.
Recommended Citation
Schubert, Petra and Walsh, Gianfranco, "Investment in Business Software and Perceived Utility: An Empirical Study" (2008). BLED 2008 Proceedings. 4.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/bled2008/4