Title: The role of information and communication technologies in moving toward new forms of organising

Authors: Ahmad Abareshi; William Martin; Alemayehu Molla

Addresses: School of Business IT and Logistics, RMIT University, Bourke Street, Melbourne 3001, Australia. ' Management and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Locked Bag 218, Lilydale 3140, Australia. ' School of Business IT and Logistics, RMIT University, Bourke Street, Melbourne 3001, Australia

Abstract: Over recent decades a significant part of research in organisational sociology has focused on how new organisational forms evolve. As an influencing variable ICT has been one of the important variables in the transformation process toward new forms of organisation. However, cumulative results from the previous studies that examined the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICT) and NOFs, were plagued with ambiguities and inconsistencies. This study aims to address the existing gap in the literature by developing a theoretical model by which the relationships among specific attributes of ICT. Data were collected through a survey on 3,248 Australian medium and large organisations. In total 312 completed questionnaires were usable for the data analysis. Structural equation modelling was used to test the model. The empirical study supported all the hypotheses except the relationship between specific gesture of business strategy (proactiveness) and IT strategy to support proactiveness and the evolution of attributes of the NOFs.

Keywords: new organisational forms; NOFs; information technology; communications technology; ICT; IT alignment; Australia; structural equation modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2012.045169

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2012 Vol.9 No.2, pp.169 - 188

Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

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