Information Technology Investment Evaluation: Evidence and Interpretations

Structures are important to the practice of information technology (IT) evaluation. Structures, as evidenced by 14 case studies and the words of six financial directors, are defined here as organizational responses, including user committees and responsibility accounting, quantitative assessments of IT projects, such as financial appraisals, and qualitative assessments. Structures in practice seem to allow for a changing world in which projects are accepted according to business needs and subsequent actions lead accepted projects to be adapted and managed as time passes. In order to manage IT technology in this way, structures alone are important but not sufficient. Active individuals have an important role to play and credibility becomes an important factor in evaluation and implementation. The credibility of IT management is created by its selling of the project in the first place and then by its ability to manage the project in a responsive way. Credible strategists are at least as important as a strategy to the evaluation of IT.