Role of information technology in enabling managerial dynamic capabilities

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this conceptual paper is to explicate the role played by information technology (IT) in enabling managerial dynamic capabilities. By doing so, this paper seeks to address a critical theoretical gap regarding IT’s role in enabling dynamic capabilities (DCs). DCs are knowledge-intensive and information-intensive processes and play a crucial role in facilitating strategic renewal of firms operating in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous business environments. Although managers play a central role in the DCs framework, extant research has only focused on the role of IT in enabling firm-level and process-level DCs. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper uses the literatures on dynamic managerial capabilities, individual-level information system use, social capital, human capital, managerial cognition and technology-enabled learning to build propositions that link managerial IT use with the enablement of dynamic managerial capabilities. Findings This paper introduces a new construct called individual IT leveraging capability (IILC) and provides theoretically grounded arguments that link IILC with managerial social capital, managerial cognition and managerial human capital. It also explicates the relationships between managerial social capital, managerial cognition and managerial human capital and the dynamic managerial capabilities of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring. Research limitations/implications The establishment of the linkage between IT and dynamic managerial capabilities extends the literature on the business value of IT. This work also adds to the literature on dynamic managerial capabilities by providing a theoretically grounded argument that IT can act as an antecedent of such capabilities. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is arguably the first to theorize the role of IT in enabling managerial DC and thus addresses a critical gap in academic research literature.