Are businesses gaining competitive advantage with the implementation of enterprise information systems?

Organizations are increasingly investing in complex technological innovations such as enterprise information systems, with the aim of improving the operations of the business, and in this way gaining competitive advantage. However, the implementation of technological innovations tends to have an excessive focus on either technology innovation effectiveness (also known as system effectiveness), or the resulting operational effectiveness; focusing on either one of them is detrimental to the long-term enterprise benefits through failure to achieve the real value of technological innovations. As current literature is silent with regard to the alignment between technology innovation effectiveness and operational effectiveness, this research uses a combination of qualitative, quantitative, and a three-stage methodological approach to investigate the factors that are influencing the alignment between technology innovation effectiveness and operational effectiveness. Initial findings suggest that factors such as quality of information and user satisfaction from technology innovation effectiveness, and quality and speed from operational effectiveness are important and significantly well correlated factors that promote the alignment between technology innovation effectiveness and operational effectiveness. This research is part of a broad study contextualized in large service organizations in Australia.