The relations between IT work distribution, project benefits management and organizational performance

Abstract

In this paper we study the distribution of effort across IT development and maintenance activities, termed IT work distribution. We surveyed 88 Norwegian organizations as part of a longitudinal analysis including data for several decades. Between 1998 and 2018 we observe a stable pattern of IT work distribution with no increase in the amount of work that organizations put into value adding activities. Organizations that channeled much effort into value-adding activities reported significantly better realized benefits from their IT activities, a higher degree of competitiveness, and adopted IT project benefits management practices to a greater extent. We propose future studies to uncover causal relationships between our studied practices.