Impact of IT Unit’s Decision Right on Organizational Risk Taking in IT

Author

Ling Xue, Operations and Information Management, University of Scranton, Scranton, PA, United States.Follow
Cheng Zhang, Information Management and Information Systems, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.Follow
Hong Ling, Information Management and Information Systems, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.Follow
Xia Zhao, Information Systems and Operations Management, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, United States.Follow

Abstract

The objective of this study is to understand how the company’s risk-taking decisions in IT adoption are influenced by the decision right of its IT unit. The study builds a theoretical framework capturing how the IT unit’s decision right influences two determinants of risk taking, perceived risk and risk propensity. This framework also illustrates how the impacts of these two determinants on the actual actions of IT adoption are moderated by the IT unit’s decision right. The framework is empirically tested using a dataset on the adoption of electronic supply chain management (e-SCM) systems. The findings suggest that the IT unit’s decision right is not associated with the decrease in perceived risk. However, it is associated with the increase in risk propensity. Moreover, the IT unit’s decision right strengthens the positive association between risk propensity and e-SCM adoption, and weakens the negative association between perceived risk and e-SCM adoption.

Recommended Citation

Xue, Ling; Zhang, Cheng; Ling, Hong; and Zhao, Xia, "Impact of IT Unit’s Decision Right on Organizational Risk Taking in IT" (2011). ICIS 2011 Proceedings. 4.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2011/proceedings/organization/4