Determinants of Organizational IT Infrastructure Capabilities: An Empirical Study

Investment in information technology (IT) infrastructure has in recent years become a strategic organizational choice. Yet, there exists little understanding of the organizational factors that determine IT infrastructure capabilities and investment requirements. Using a filed survey of both business and IT executives, this study tests a research model that links a set of organizational factors to IT infrastructure capabilities. Organizational factors explored in this study include both external environment variables (competitiveness, dynamism and heterogeneity) and internal environment variables (organizational size, information intensity, the perceived role of IT, IT-business alignment, and business synergy). The results suggest that, among all the organizational factors, IT-business alignment, the perceived role of IT, and business synergy were the most significant predictors of an organization’s IT infrastructure capabilities. The characteristics of an organization’s external environment, however, were not directly related to an organization’s IT infrastructure capabilities. Implications of the results are discussed.