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Brinkhues et al. Information Management Capabilities: Antecedents and Consequences
Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014 1
Information Management Capabilities:
Antecedents And Consequences
Completed Research Paper
Rafael Alfonso Brinkhues
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
rafabrink@gmail.com
Antonio Carlos Gastaud Maçada
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
acgmacada@ea.ufrgs.br
Gilmar D'Agostini Oliveira Casalinho
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
gilmar.casalinho@ufrgs.br
Abstract
With organizations immersed in data (Davenport et al., 2012), developing the organizational capabilities
to take advantage of this huge flow of heterogeneous data (Bharadwaj et al., 2013) has become essential
for creating strategic value. This paper specifically analyzes the antecedents and consequences of IMC -
Information Management Capabilities (Carmichael et al.,2010; Mihtas et al.,2011; Phadtare, 2011). To this
end, we sought to identify the works that proposed to develop the construct, mapping the theoretical
assumptions on which it’s founded. We found 98 citations of such works through different types of
searches. We selected those publications that contributed or analyzed IMC in some way as a fundamental
part of the work. By synthesizing these searches, it was possible to analyze their contributions to IMC and
to point out suggestions for future advances on this subject.
Keywords
Information Management Capabilities, Antecedents, Consequences, Literature Review.
Introduction
In recent years, special attention has been paid to the numerous opportunities arising due to the
exponential growth of data made available by new technologies. The opportunity for organizations to
exploit this data has drawn attention not only from the specialized media (academic and corporate), but
also from the mainstream media (e.g. Economist, 2010; New York Times, 2012; Veja, 2013). In addition
to being a research topic that is increasingly discussed in academic circles (Pospiech and Felden, 2012),
Big Data has also gained prominence among practitioners. The interest of organizations in investing in IT
solutions has increased in order to respond to changes in the competitive environment within this Big
Data context. According to Gartner (2013), about 64% of the companies invest or plan to invest in specific
projects to deal with Big Data opportunities (Computerworld, 2013). The institute also points out that
organizations in this context are faced with three challenges: information strategy, data analysis and
information management (Gartner, 2013).
Given the importance of this emerging context, this paper seeks to examine the role of information
management capabilities (IMC) by reviewing and summarizing the literature of interest for this construct
and pointing out directions for future research on subjects. The anchor work on information management
capabilities (Mithas et al., 2011) has demonstrated its positive influence, mediated by organizational
management capabilities (of customers, processes and performance), on corporate performance.
However, with organizations being immersed in data (Davenport et al. 2012), the development of
organizational capabilities to take advantage of this huge flow of heterogeneous data (Bharadwaj et al.,
2013) has become essential for creating strategic value.
Brinkhues et al. Strategic and Competitive Use of Information Technology
2 Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014
Studies on organizational strategy are the precursors of research on organizational capabilities. Unlike the
classical strategic approach, which sees strategy in terms of industry structure and as the search for an
advantageous position within it (Porter, 1985), the resource-based perspective focuses on the exploitation
of specific firm assets (Teece et al. 1997). In his article "a Resource-Based View of the Firm", Wernerfelt
(1984) proposed identifying the firm's resources and, based on their analysis, look at its strategic options.
The author started with the " idea of looking at firms as a set of resources goes back to the seminal work of
Penrose (1959)" (Wenerfelt, 1984, p. 171). Capabilities, much like assets, can be considered resources of
the firm (Wade and Hulland, 2004), and from such a perspective, their idiosyncrasy is responsible for the
heterogeneity in organizational performance (Barney, 1991; Rumelt, 1991).
Several organizational capabilities have been studied extensively in the field of Information Systems – IS
(e.g. Bharadwaj, 2000; Santhanam and Hartono, 2003; Bhatt and Grover, 2005; Ray et al.,2005). This
paper, however, specifically analyzes the antecedents and consequences of IMC (Carmichael et al. 2010;
Mithas et al. 2011; Phadtare, 2011) in the field’s literature. Considering the research suggestions made by
Mithas et al. (2011, p.252) "to investigate the antecedents of information management capability of firms",
this paper aims to: (a) identify the studies that proposed a definition of IMC and the theoretical
perspectives that underlie it; (b) analyze the follow-up research conducted into earlier studies that have
proposed definitions of IMC; and (c) propose a conceptual map showing the relationships of IMC
concepts with their theoretical background and the potential constructs for future research into this topic.
A search using the Web of Knowledge and Google Scholar tools resulted in 98 citations of such works in
different types of searches. We selected those publications that contributed or analyzed IMC in some way
as a fundamental part of the work. By synthesizing these searches, it was possible to analyze their
contributions to IMC and to point out suggestions for future advances on this subject.
This study is structured as follows: the first part presents the theoretical assumptions on which IMC are
based. Then we analyze the major works that sought to develop the construct in terms of the theories and
studies on which this development was based. The third part details the procedures for collection and
analysis of the data obtained from the citations of the seminal publications. And, finally, we present the
results and discuss the possibilities for further research on this construct.
Theoretical Background
Resource and Capabilities
Resources consist of organizational assets and capabilities (Wade and Hulland, 2004). As a result,
resources and capabilities are often used interchangeably. Capabilities, however, are specifically
composed of the skills to gather, integrate and manage resources (Russo and Fouts, 1997). Or,
"capabilities are understood as a procedural ability to direct resources and their interactions in ways that
contribute to the advancement of organizational performance" (Taher 2012, p. 158). Capabilities that are
valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable can be considered strategic (Teece el al.1997).
Therefore, the first theoretical assumption on which IMC are based, is related to the strategic role of
capabilities in organizations. It states that a firm can distinguish itself within an industry by what strategic
resources it controls and how it controls them. The other assumption is that these resources should not be
perfectly transferable from one firm to other, which means heterogeneity can be long lasting (Barney,
1991). Barney developed a framework to analyze which of the firm's resources were or were not sources of
a sustainable competitive advantage.
Not all resources have the potential to sustain a competitive advantage. To have this potential, a resource
must have four attributes (Barney, 1991, p. 105): (a) it must be valuable, in the sense that it exploit
opportunities and/or neutralizes threats in a firm's environment, (b) it must be rare among a firm's
current and potential competition, (c) it must be imperfectly imitable, and (d) there cannot be
strategically equivalent substitutes for this resources that are valuable but neither rare or imperfectly
imitable.
These attributes have been widely studied and tested with regard to IS resources (e.g. Mata et al, 1995;
Bhatt and Grover, 2005). Barney himself discussed information processing systems and sustainable
competitive advantages in his famous work, where he stated what Carr (2003) concluded twelve years
later: that the physical IS resources can’t be a source of sustainable competitive advantage because they
Information Management Capabilities: Antecedents and Consequences
Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014 3
can be bought, and that a strategy based on these resources is probably imitable. However, the formal and
informal management of IS resources is identified as a potential source of sustainable competitive
advantage. He argues that the management of information systems may give rise to a rare quality, and,
since these are "also a socially complex systems, and thus will probably be imperfectly imitable" (Barney,
1991, p. 114).
Managerial skills are likely to be sources of sustainable competitive advantage since their interrelations
are socially complex and, therefore, not subject to low cost imitation (Mata et al. 1995). Seeking to explain
the sustainability of competitive advantages based on IT, the authors therefore suggested a framework to
analyze four IT attributes (capital requirements, ownership of the technology, technical IT skills and
managerial IT skills). To achieve this, their framework followed the conditions for value creation,
heterogeneity and immobility of resources. The results led to the conclusion that, among the analyzed IT
attributes, only managerial IT skills have the potential to be a source of sustainable competitive
advantage. This conclusion corroborates the earlier statements from Barney (1991) about the potential of
strategic sustainability of IS. It is the management skill, and not the technology per se, which can be a
source of competitive advantage.
In a comprehensive review of the literature on RBV in IS, Wade and Hulland (2004) concluded that this
theory was useful for IS research and suggested an extension to it. The authors proposed two temporal
phases, which they called the competitive advantage and sustainability phase. In the first phase, the
productive use of resources that are valuable, rare and appropriable lead to a short-term competitive
advantage, which in the second phase becomes sustainable over time if these resources are poorly
imitable, poorly substitutable and hard to transfer. They also discussed another relationship, in which the
sustainability phase, in the ex post limits to competition, the low substitutability sustains the value of the
resource, an attribute located in the ex ante limits to competition in the competitive advantage phase. The
same occurs with low mobility and low imitability, which underpin the scarcity of the resource.
Wade and Hulland (2004) emphasize, however, that resources rarely act alone in creating or sustaining a
competitive advantage. IS resources, in particular, work together with other resources of the firm to
provide strategic benefits. Therefore, " the strategic information technology (SIT) area of research is a rich
source of evidence that can be used to illustrate the importance of the resource complementarity issue"
(Wade and Hulland, 2004, p. 123). Complementarity is also evoked by Taher (2012) in his proposed
orchestration of resources. Based on a discussion of RBV in the field of IS and analyzing the impacts of IT
and non-IT resources on competitive advantage, he proposes the term resource orchestration to explain
the result of all resources as a conceptual unit, and also to investigate the impressionability of resources
within this orchestration. That is, orchestration, by analogy with the musical term, deals with the
complementarity and impressionability of resources in an organization to develop an IT project.
Like in the studies cited above, other extensions and combinations with RBV have been proposed in order
to advance our understanding of the role of resources in creating the firm’s competitive advantage. Core
Competences (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990) can be seen as a more practical approach of RBV, in which the
authors argued that, to add value, the firm's resources must be inimitable. Another extension of RBV that
will be further discussed below, since it is central to this paper, are the dynamic capabilities (Teece et al.
1997; Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). This approach goes further than RBV in the sense that it considers
that additional attributes must be linked to a skill for it to create a competitive advantage in a dynamic
environment.
Dynamic capabilities are a strategic approach to understand organizational change (Hefelt And Peteraf,
2009). But even more, this theoretical perspective deals with the skills of a firm to respond to a changing
environment (Teece et al. 1997; Eiserhardt and Martin, 2000; Winter, 2003). The concept of dynamic
capabilities is defined in different ways by some authors.
The seminal work in this regard is also the most cited, according to a review of the field conducted by
Peteraf et al. (2013): Teece et al. (1997, p. 516) define dynamic capabilities as "the firm's ability to
integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing
environments”. By contrast, Eisenhardt and Martin (2000, p. 1107) define the concepts as "the processes
to integrate, reconfigure, gain and release resources—to match and even create market change". A third
definition takes into account the ability of dynamic capabilities of an organization to purposefully create,
extend and modify its resource base (Helfat et al. 2007).
Brinkhues et al. Strategic and Competitive Use of Information Technology
4 Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014
In the field of IS, in the eight journals considered by the Senior Scholars Consortium of the AIS -
Association for Information Systems - as the top journals in the field
(http://start.aisnet.org/?SeniorScholarBasket), the first article to use the dynamic capabilities approach
in an IS article was the work of Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1998), published in Information Systems
Research under the title An information company in Mexico: Extending the Resource-based View of the
firm to a Developing country context. The authors presented a case study in which they use dynamic
capabilities as an extension of RBV for analysis. After this publication, a growing number of papers is
published in the analyzed journals using this theoretical extension (e.g. Tallon and Pinsonneult, 2011;
Roberts and Grover, 2012).
RBV will therefore be considered as the theoretical basis for studies on organizational capabilities and its
extensions (complementarity, dynamic capabilities and core competencies) and as theoretical
specifications by which IMC can be analyzed. Figure 1 illustrates these theoretical perspectives as
assumptions for future analysis of the construct.
Figure 1. Theoretical Perspectives on Capabilities
Information Management Capabilities
Firm resources include all assets, capabilities, organizational processes, firm attributes, information,
knowledge, etc. controlled by a firm and that enable the firm to conceive of and implement strategies that
improve its efficiency and effectiveness (Barney, 1991, p.101).
Through the lens of the theoretical perspective exposed in the previous section, information as a resource
or capability can therefore be considered as potentially strategic. Information as a strategic resource was
also highlighted by McGee and Pruzak (1994) in their seminal work "Strategic Information Management".
In it they point out that an organization should consider all the resources needed to implement its
strategy, including information. The authors emphasize four aspects of duality related to information,
which make generalizations about its strategic use difficult: (1) information is explicit and abundant, but
also appears in subtle ways, (2) creating information is individual and hard, but it spreads and multiplies
easily, (3) information has value when it’s owned, but only has economic value if it’s shared, and, finally,
(4) information may have eternal value, but it may also, in certain circumstances, have its value reset to
zero very quickly. To deal with these dualities and extract strategic value of information, therefore, the
organization needs to develop organizational capabilities to manage them. Focusing on “managing
information before turning to technology can be a highly beneficial approach to understanding the
strategic dimensions of information" (McGee and Prusak, 1994, p. 8).
Also focusing on information management practices, Marchand and Kettinger (2011) propose five stages
of an information life cycle in practice. At each stage there is a continuous evaluation of information. First
there is the detection of information, then the gathering of information, organization of information,
processing of information and, finally, the maintenance of information. The authors propose a model to
evaluate the practical information management measures at companies.
Information management can also be seen as an organizational capability, meaning the ability to use
valuable resources in combination (Javenpaa and Leidner, 1998). Managing information means
employing a resource in combination with other organizational resources and capabilities to develop tasks
described by Marchand and Kettinger (2011).
The information management capability construct, on the other hand, has been proposed in the literature
in three papers. Mhitas et al. (2011) coined the term in an article published in MISQ to develop a
conceptual model linking it with three other organizational capabilities (customer management, process
management and performance management). The results showed that these organizational management
capabilities mediate the positive influence of the information management capability on the performance
Information Management Capabilities: Antecedents and Consequences
Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014 5
of the firm. The authors developed the term based on a number of selected articles from the IS literature
that linked IT-related capabilities and firm performance. For them the concept can be divided into three
dimensions when looked at in detail: (a) the ability to provide data and information to users with
appropriate levels of accuracy, timeliness, reliability, security and confidentiality, (b) the ability to provide
connectivity and universal access at an adequate scope and scale, and (c) the ability to adapt the
infrastructure to the emerging needs and directions of the market.
Carmichael et al. (2011) defined IMC as a second-order construct composed of three first-order factors:
compilation and production of information, access to information, and identification of information
distribution requirements. Their study concluded that IMC have a direct and significant effect on firm
performance. Furthermore, IMC contribute to a more competitive strategic position by helping the
company achieve competitive advantages in two sources proposed by Porter and Millar (1985): costs and
differentiation.
In his book Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases, another author, Phadtare (2011), proposes that
IMC are linked to five factors: acquisition and retention, processing and synthesis, recovery and use,
transmission and dissemination, and support system and integration. The author also suggests in his
reasoning about organizational capabilities that IMC belong to the functional capabilities, and not to the
organizational capabilities in the value chain from Porter (1985). The Table 1 summarizes the definitions
of IMC above and presents their dimensions and the amount of citations found at literature review.
Study
Definition
Dimensions
Impact
Citations
Carmichael et al.
(2011)
Organization's ability to
understand and use the
technological, human and
organizational resources
needed to manage both
internal and external
information
(a) compilation and
production of
information, (b) access to
information and (c)
identification of
information distribution
requirements
IMC have a
positive and
direct impact
on
organizational
performance.
03
Mithas et al.
(2011)
The ability to provide
data and information to
users with appropriate
levels ( ... ) and access,
and the ability to adapt
these levels in response to
changes in market needs
and directions.
(a) the ability to provide
data and information to
users with appropriate
levels of accuracy,
timeliness, reliability,
security and
confidentiality, (b) the
ability to provide
connectivity and universal
access at an adequate
scope and scale, and (c)
the ability to adapt the
infrastructure to the
emerging needs and
directions of the market
IMC have an
indirect and
positive
impact on
organizational
performance.
94
Pahdtare (2011)
The ability to coordinate
informational resources
and put them to
productive use
a) acquisition and
retention, (b) processing
and synthesis, (c) recovery
and use, (d) transmission
and dissemination, and
(e) support system and
integration
Not
evaluated.
01
Table 1. Definitions of IMC
Brinkhues et al. Strategic and Competitive Use of Information Technology
6 Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014
Procedures for Research and Analysis
We searched scientific databases (e.g. Web of Knowledge, Google Scholar, EBSCO) using the sentence:
"information management capability" and its plural form "capabilities". We found three papers that
proposed definitions for the concept of IMC as shown in Table 1.
To identify studies that were published after the three publications that developed the IMC concept
described above, we used two search tools: Web of Knowledge (http://apps.webofknowledge.com/) and
Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/). The searches were performed between October 10, 2013,
and October 28, 2013. In total, we found 118 papers referring to the works that proposed the IMC
construct. Of these, 19 came from Web of Knowledge and 98 from Google Scholar. Of all citations, 18 were
double occurrences between the two portals and one work within the Google Scholar itself. Excluding the
duplicate results, the original sample consisted of 98 works.
Most articles were published in journals, totaling 49, followed by 27 conference proceedings, 5 master’s
theses, and 17 other works (such as ongoing research, books and doctoral theses). All studies were
analyzed to see if (a) IMC was a central theme of the work, (b) if a definition of IMC was used, and if so,
which one, and (c) if a contribution or advance was made to the IMC literature.
For this analysis the following selection criteria were used:
(a) IMC is a central theme of the article based on the presence of the term in the title, keywords,
or as a search variable;
(b) The criteria for the use of the definition was found in the work that brought somewhere in the
text at least one of the three definitions of IMC. (Carmichael et al., 2011; Mithas et al., 2011 or Padthare,
2011); and,
(c) The contribution or advance of IMC literature was observed by the presence of new variables
relations with the different constructs used in the three papers mentioned before, or new propositions
from theoretical reflections.
Following Schäfferling (2013) we considered only those works relevant that conceptualized IMC. Of the
initial sample of 98 work, only seven (7%) used some concept for IMC. Of these, only four used IMC as a
central concept and proposed some contribution to the literature on the subject. These works all referred
to the work by Mithas et al. (2011). The other two had very little citations, as can be seen in Table 1, and
none of these referrers employed their IMC concepts.
Even with the small number of studies that used IMC as a central theme, it was possible to perform an
analysis of the main directions they took and of the consequences of the definitions proposed by the works
of origin. This analysis is presented in the next section.
Findings
When we consider the theoretical antecedents, we can see that the article by Mithas et al. (2011) uses
mainly the IT capabilities related to performance, in addition to Baldrige’s quality management criteria.
The authors based their definition on Marchand's et al (2000) concept of information management
practices, and justified their definition based on the information management literature (e.g. Davenport,
1998; Davenport and Linder, 1994). The concept of IMC given by Mithas et al. is therefore not explicitly
related to the strategic management literature, or even with theoretical perspectives based on resources.
However, their definition of IMC, which mentions "to tailor the infrastructure to emerging business needs
and directions" as a criterion (Mithas et al, 2011, p. A4), makes it clear we are dealing with something
similar to dynamic capabilities (Teece, 1997; Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000).
The theoretical assumptions of the other two works, on the other hand, tie up the IMC concept closely
with strategic theories, and RBV in particular. Carmichael et al. (2011) not only build the theoretical
foundations of their studies of organizational capabilities, and information management in particular, on
RBV (Barney, 1991), they also include the need for complementarity in the concept description itself. On
the other hand, even though it is quite restricted, the IMC concept from Phadtare (2011) implies that IMC
belong to another category of organizational capabilities given its differences in comparison to the
capabilities of Porter’s value chain (1985). This distinction brings their concept closer to the assumptions
related to Core Competences (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990).
Information Management Capabilities: Antecedents and Consequences
Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014 7
Among the studies that used IMC as a central theme, or that made some contribution to the literature on
this subject, we find the works of Schryen (2012). This author reviewed the literature on IS concerning
investments. He made a specific caveat concerning the work by Mithas et al. (2011) by highlighting the
empirical evidence of the impact of IMC on mediating organizational capabilities of performance.
According to him, the existence of correlations between the constructs does not necessarily imply
causality. He also suggested that future research should examine the causal impact of each type of
capability on IS capability, in addition to the joint causal effects of all three types of capabilities.
Studying the subject of information management and agility, Huang et al. (2012) proposed a procedural
model for how information management helps companies achieve agility with customers. They support
the conclusion "that information management capability is indeed a foundational capability that enhances
other organizational capabilities, which in turn affect firm performance." (Mithas et al., 2011, p. 251).
Their proposed model shows that to achieve agility, organizations must develop information management
capabilities by setting up the necessary skills.
Chen and Siao (2013) make a connection between IMC and BI functions. The authors suggest that BI has
a crucial influence on capability by enabling the organization to develop the skill of providing data and
information to users with the appropriate levels of accuracy, timeliness, reliability, security and
confidentiality (Mithas et al. 2011). They further argue that agility is an essential part of management
capabilities.
Working on information visibility, Graupner and Mädche (2012) propose a model where IMC play a
mediating role between the integrating capability of IT, in complementarity with the process management
capability, to impact on the process visibility capability. This model, which is based on RBV, suggests that
the process visibility capability can generate a competitive advantage. In addition to directly impacting the
visibility capability, they propose that the IMC are directly impacted by the IT integration capabilities.
Finally, the authors suggest that there is a direct and mutual impact between the process management
and IMC capabilities.
Some similarities between the works that have just been described can be observed. The next section will
discuss these convergences, in addition to presenting a synthesis of the theoretical implications of the
IMC construct and the possible directions for research on this subject.
Discussion
When we talk about organizational capabilities, it is clear that their theoretical origins lie in the studies on
strategic management, specifically those adopting a resource based perspective as a source of
differentiation (Wenerfelt, 1984, Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Barney, 1991; Rumelt, 1991; Teece et al.,
1997; Eisenrhardt and Martin, 2000). This antecedent was only explicit in the work by Graupner and
Mädche (2012), who based their model on RBV and the complementarity of resources.
Graupner and Mädche (2012) also suggest that the information management capabilities, mediated by the
process visibility capability, are able to generate competitive advantages. This proposition is consistent
with the results of Mata et al. (1995), who found that, among the analyzed IT attributes, only managerial
IT skills have the potential to be a source of sustainable competitive advantage.
Both Huang et al. (2012), and Chen and Siau (2011) investigated the relationships between IMC and
agility. Agility is closely related to the concept of dynamic capabilities - "the firm's ability to integrate,
build and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments”
(Teece et al.,1997, p. 516). As we’ve seen, dynamic capabilities converge with the third dimension of IMC
proposed by Mithas et al. (2011): the ability to adapt the infrastructure to the emerging needs and
directions of the market.
Figure 2 shows a conceptual map that illustrates the IMC concepts with their dimensions and origins, in
addition to the related theoretical perspectives and the consequent contributions.
Brinkhues et al. Strategic and Competitive Use of Information Technology
8 Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014
Figure 2. Conceptual Map IMC, theoretical perspectives and consequent contributions
The definitions of IMC and its dimensions according to Phadtare (2011), Mithas et al. (2011), and
Carmichael et al. (2011) form the central part of the map. The theoretical perspectives and related
theoretical background are presented to the left of the concepts, based on the RBV and relating each of its
extensions to a definition of IMC (Core Competences, Dynamic Capabilities, and, Complementarity). On
the right side of the map are the related constructs found in the literature for the work that followed IMC,
in particular, with reference to the definition of Mithas et al. (2011).
The conceptual map has elaborated from analysis of IMC's theoretical antecedents and from newer works
about this construct. It suggests ideas for research in this topic. We point out some potential related
constructs to IMC to be studied in the future: integration, competitive advantage, reconfiguration and
agility. These four constructs emerged from gaps found by revisiting the theoretical perspectives
regarding capabilities and from the identified variables in recent research.
The natural dependent variable of strategic resource studies is competitive differentiation. However, few
studies have attempted to analyze its impact (e.g. Carmichael et al, 2011; Graupner and Mädche 2012).
There are validated frameworks for the analysis of management capabilities in IS and sustainable
competitive advantage (Mata et al., 1995). One of the directions for research in IMC is therefore related to
their differentiation potential.
Phadtare (2011):
• acquisition and retention
• processing and synthesis
• recovery and use
• transmission and dissemination
• support system and integration
Theories
IMC Definitions
Related Constructs
Mithas et al. (2011):
• ability to provide data and
information to users
• ability to provide connectivity
and universal access
• ability to adapt the
infrastructure to the emerging
needs
Carmichael et al. (2011):
• compilation and production of
information,
• access to information
• identification of information
distribution requirements
Agility
Capability of
configuration
Capability of
Process
Visibility
Capability of
IT Integration
Information Management Capabilities: Antecedents and Consequences
Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014 9
Dynamic capabilities were linked to the search for evidence of the impact of IMC on agility. This approach
offers other possibilities of analysis, for example, of integration and reconfiguration (Teece et al. 1997;
Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000).
Figure 3. Possible Investigation of Related Constructs
Investigating the relationship between IMC and other dimensions may contribute to our understanding of
the role of these capabilities in organizations. Finally, considering other theoretical perspectives may
bring new contributions to the IMC literature. However, we must be careful with theories that compete
with the theoretical assumptions of the construct.
Conclusion
This study aimed to examine the theoretical basis of IMC, to identify the seminal works related to the
construct, to evaluate the research arising from them, and to point to new research paths on the subject.
Managing information has become even more relevant in the context of Big Data. However, it is to be
expected that a new way of managing information will be necessary in the context of Big Data. Although
an argument can be made that it is the managerial skills that are still a source of strategic differentiation,
as indicated by Mata et al. (1995), it is clear that to acquire these skills in this new context, other skills and
abilities are needed. The amount, velocity and variety of data requires that the flow be revised so that
organizations can learn to take advantage of Big Data, using information in real time to understand their
environment at a granular level, and thus respond to changes as they occur (Davenport et al., 2012).
Responding quickly to market changes is an intrinsic quality of both IMC and dynamic capabilities. As a
response to change, IMC plays an important role as a strategic resource. Because of this, three extensions
to RBV (Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1991; Rumelt, 1991) were identified that form the theoretical origin of
IMC (complementarity, dynamic capabilities and core competencies). The works that proposed to develop
the IMC construct (Carmichael et al., 2011; Mithas et al., 2011; Phadtare, 2011) were consistent with these
theoretical assumptions. We identified some variables related to IMC's construct by searching their
citations in literature. These variables were found in works that performed research using one of three of
Brinkhues et al. Strategic and Competitive Use of Information Technology
10 Twentieth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Savannah, 2014
IMC's definitions. The contributions of those works that were identified already point to some directions
that research can take on this subject.
Considering a context in which organizations are increasingly investing in tools to extract the strategic
value of the data in which they are immersed (Davenport et al., 2012), IMC have become a research topic
that is even more relevant to IS scholars and practitioners. We discovered that some constructs related to
IMC (illustrated in Figure 3) also are claimed in a paper about Big Data. Specifically, we point out agility.
This organizational skill was found in some works on the topic (e.g. Demirkan and Delen, 2013;
Santaferraro, 2012; Howe, 2008). Exploiting data from new technologies to gain competitive advantage is
essential for surviving in an organizational strategic environment (Manyika et al. 2011; Mcafee And
Brynjolfsson, 2012).
Lastly, IMC may perform a relevant role for agility improvement of a firm, through reconfiguration and
integration, to gain competitive advantage in the Big Data context. We suggest that IMC construct could
be studied by others for theoretical perspectives and contexts, so we can fully understand its importance
for different organizational areas, not only those related to the IS area.
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