Management Information Systems Quarterly
Abstract
Successful product and process design depends on management’s ability to integrate fragmented pockets of specialized knowledge. This integrative capability has important implications for large-scale information technology projects. This article examines the relationship between timely project completion and two dimensions of management’s integrative capability: access to external knowledge and internal knowledge integration. Measures of these two dimensions are used to predict on-time project completion, where completion is a function of the duration of IT-related project delays. In a longitudinal study of 74 enterprise application integration projects in the medical sector, integrative capability was measured from the point of view of the CIO and a facility IT manager. Accounting for several project controls, our Cox regression results indicate both integrative dimensions significantly mitigate the duration of IT-related project delays, thus promoting timely project completion. The analysis also reveals the importance of taking management structure into consideration when studying IT phenomena in networked organizations.