文摘
Information and communication technologies ICT) have an essential role in todays organizations and ever-changing dynamic environments. ICT has substantial tangible and intangible impact on organizations not only in usual environments, but also in extreme environments. This dissertation is composed of three essays on the impact of ICT in organizations from organizational level and individual level perspectives. The first essay seeks to increase the understanding of ICT and its impacts on organizations. More specifically, this essay investigates whether and how time, managerial discretion, and organizational size influence the organizational impact of ICT. Based on a meta-analysis of 91 primary studies, the results of this essay show that there is an increase from 1980s to 1990s, and a decrease from 1990s to 2000s in terms of ICT payoffs, while ICT positively affected organizations at all time periods. The results also show that, large firms and firms operating in highly discretionary environments tend to outperform other firms. The findings of this essay are enriched with the feedback received from seven CIOs and provide important practical and research implications. The second essay focuses on the organizational impact of ICT from a methodological perspective. This essay examines how various methodological choices in the meta-analysis affect research outcomes. The essay also provides a discussion on the sensitivity of the theory-based hypotheses derived from the research on the organizational impact of ICT. Overall, findings suggest that researchers should be cognizant of their methodological choices, as they may be observing the phenomenon under different boundary conditions with different methodologies. Following these two essays, which focus on the organizational impact of ICT in usual environments in organizations, the third essay examines the role of ICT in academic institutions in extreme environments. Dealing with the issue at the individual level, this essay examines the critical factors determining the students ICT preferences for receiving emergency information during extreme events in university campuses. More specifically, the study explores whether media richness perceptions, perceived trust in information, perceived risk and benefit, and perceived social influence affect students media choice for receiving emergency notifications. The essay also challenges the efficacy of the text-based SMS) emergency notification systems deployed by the universities, and suggests insights with respect to the exploitation of online social networking sites SNS) as the alternative/additional emergency communication channel at academic institutions.