IT Value Sustainability: Searching For Explanatory Causal Mechanisms

Abstract

For much of the 21^st century, academics, business leaders, and practitioners have defined and measured organizational payoffs resulting from investment in information technologies (IT).  This paper and presentation begin to extend the concepts of IT payoff to value sustainability.  The authors synthesize the relevant literature and integrate it with the sociology concept of causal mechanisms to open up the “black box” on sustainability.  A research plan is presented for review and comments.