Understanding senior management's behavior in promoting the strategic role of IT in process reengineering: use of the theory of reasoned action

Information technology has been considered as both a strategic catalyst and enabler of business process reengineering (BPR). An area of major concern has been the difficulty to convince senior management’s reluctant behavior toward promoting the strategic role of IT in process reengineering. There has been relatively little research on this topic. Furthermore, one common approach might be merely to study senior management’s behavior as a whole. What appears to be missing is an examination of the possible underlying reasons for senior management’s behavior. The theory of reasoned action (TRA) may provide a basis for analyzing the behavior. In particular, it can be used to assess the effects of interventions designed to change behavior. Basically, this framework has three steps: (1) examining original behavior, (2) developing remedial actions for negative behavior, and (3) assessing the changed behavior. Furthermore, this framework is examined by an empirical study to understand its application in practice. # 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.