ABSTRACT
Every year ¥rms spend billions of dollars on upgrading and implementing new information technology (IT) with the goal of improving organizational productivity and end up being unhappy with the outcomes. In 2002, Morgan Stanley reported that U.S. companies wasted $130 billion in the previous two years on IT projects (Ward 2002). Although the evidence from empirical research on IT and organizational productivity improvements is contradictory, managers continue to make large investments in IT. A 1994 Standish Group study reported that 73% of these IT projects did not meet top management’s expectations (The Standish Group 1994). However, it has been empirically established that IT can increase organizational productivity if effectively managed (Basu et al. 2001; Bresnahan and Trajtenberg 1995; Brynjolfsson and Hitt 1996; Dewan and Min 1997; Ko and Osei-Bryson 2004a, 2004b; Lee and Menon 2000;
Introduction ............................................................................................................ 397 Software Upgrade Problem .................................................................................... 398 Framework for Analysis ......................................................................................... 399
Organizational Context .....................................................................................400 Basic Concepts ............................................................................................. 401 Case of the Instantaneous Learner................................................................402 Everyday Case: The Organization Has a Learning Curve ............................404
