Not Everybody's Darling - Investigating the Acceptance of Benefits Management and Moderating Organizational Characteristics

Despite organizations’ substantial investments in information systems and information technology, the successful realization of appropriate benefits is still often considered a major organizational challenge. Beyond traditional project management dimensions, such as time, cost, and quality, BM emphasizes the need to identify, plan, realize, and review benefits, particularly by means of business changes. While the BM field is still evolving, most studies report on the alarmingly low BM adoption rates in practice. Therefore, we try to understand the determinants of BM acceptance by developing a conceptual model and conducting complementary, exploratory interviews. We find that an individual’s role in BM and specific organizational culture characteristics play a major role in influencing BM acceptance’s determinants. We contribute to BM research by providing a deeper understanding of BM acceptance and adoption. Practitioners can use these insights to launch more successful change initiatives while implementing BM.