Title: The IT productivity paradox revisited: technological determinism masked by management method?

Authors: Stuart Macdonald

Addresses: Management School, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 4DT, UK

Abstract: The productivity paradox in information technology is that investment in IT does not seem to be reflected in increased productivity. There is a host of possible explanations, but little consensus on which are responsible, or even on whether the paradox still exists - if it ever really did. This paper also considers a further matter whether the waves of management methods accompanying investment in IT have been determined not so much by organisational requirements as by the opportunities offered by IT, by crude, old-fashioned technological determinism, in fact. This might help explain why so many of these methods seem to fail in terms of the organisational requirements by which they are justified.

Keywords: information technology; productivity paradox; management method.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITM.2002.001185

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2002 Vol.1 No.1, pp.1-29

Published online: 01 Jul 2003 *

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