Explaining Information Technology and Business Innovations: The Role of Cumulative Experience and Performance Feedback

Research on organizational IT innovations has generated a substantial body of insights. In this paper we draw particular attention to the thesis that IT implementations build crucial capabilities which are then typically redeployed for future IT innovations. Indeed, it is commonly accepted that organizational innovations do not take place in a historical vacuum but instead, the history of prior innovations shapes future innovations. Deliberate organizational learning is obvious in most research of how organizations document their learning from IT projects for the purpose of applying it in the future. Alternately, referred to as information technology (IT) projects (Keil 1995; Mitchell and Zmud 1999; Moore 1979), or IT implementations (Markus et al. 2000; Swanson 1994), IT innovations hone IT capabilities through experiential learning (Chan and Reich 2007; Garud and Kumaraswamy 2005; Leonard-Barton 1988; Mitchell 2006; Newell et al. 2006; Robey et al. 2002; Whitaker et al. 2010) or vicariously, through interaction with IT vendors and consultants (Ko et al. 2005; Levina and Ross 2003; Swanson and Ramiller 1997; Swanson and Ramiller 2004), and thus enable organizations to rapidly assess, design and deploy new IT systems.