An Industry-level Empirical Research Of The Return And Risk Of Information Technology

In recent years,with the development of information technology,more and more enterprises have invested a lot of IT resources in information construction.In view of whether IT investment can bring performance to enterprises,no consistent conclusion has been reached so far.The research on the relationship between IT investment and performance at home and abroad is mostly based on a few companies in a single industry,ignoring the macro industry factors that affect the performance of IT investment.Obviously,this is an important reason that leads to inconsistent conclusions on the relationship between IT investment and performance.Based on the above background,this paper studies the relationship between IT investment and industry performance from the industry level,discusses the specific industry factors that lead to the industry differences in IT investment performance,and explains how these industry factors affect the relationship between IT investment and performance.The paper first summarizes the related literature on the relationship between IT investment and enterprise performance,and finds that the industry environment is an important macro factor affecting the effect of enterprise IT investment,and establishes a conceptual model of the relationship between IT investment and industry performance in the industry level,combining the measurement method of enterprise performance in the enterprise level.The model examines the impact of industry environment-industry competition,industry regulation and industry dynamism on the relationship between IT investment and performance,and uses three indicators-productivity,profitability and industry risk to measure industry performance.The impact of IT investment on the industry is considered from the perspectives of return and risk.Then,based on the conceptual model,the paper puts forward the hypothesis that industry characteristics moderate the relationship between IT investment and industry performance.Finally,we collected data from 58 industries in the past 2006-2014 years,and verified the above research hypotheses.The empirical results show that most of the hypotheses are supported.The results show that,first,IT investment has a significant positive impact on productivity;second,there are differences in the relationship between IT investment and industry performance in different industries.In a fiercely competitive industry,though IT investment can greatly increase productivity,it does not necessarily improve profitability significantly.In a strictly regulated industry,although the profitability of IT investment is relatively low,the risk of IT investment is relatively small.And a reasonable regulatory policy can promote the growth of IT productivity.In a rapidly changing market environment,IT investment,though inclined to gain higher productivity and profitability,is accompanied by a greater risk of IT investment.