Organizational Strategy and IT Workforce During Times of Environmental Turbulence

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate how organizations may improve their agility in order to respond to environmental turbulence by developing an appropriate organizational strategy and adapting their information technology (IT) function. It analyzes a dataset containing responses from 10 386 IT professionals located in 37 countries, which was collected as part of the World IT Project. The findings show that to become agile and prosper in a turbulent environment, organizations should both innovate and differentiate themselves from their competition: in other words, they should become Prospectors and employ a differentiation strategy. They also need to invest heavily in their IT human capital by way of increasing their IT personnel and establishing effective collaboration between non-IT and IT workers. Such steps would ensure the maximization of IT resources and facilitate efficient business-IT alignment. However, on the flip side, navigating a turbulent business environment can take its toll on employees who experience work exhaustion and become less satisfied with their jobs.