Essays on the Impact of Information Technology: an Empirically-driven Assessment of How, When, Where and What Impact It Can Produce at the Individual Information Worker Level and at the Firm Level

The five essays in this thesis look at how specific information technologies (such as Electronic Document Management, Semantic Web and RuleML) and IT in general can be used to automate and standardize data and processes, enable faster and more accurate information flow, and improve individual as well as firm performance. The first essay is an analytical review-type study that provides a comprehensive survey of research literature about different complementary organizational assets that when coupled with IT can lead to higher firm performance. The second essay presents the causal effects of digitizing work on information workers' time-use and performance at a large insurance firm. The third essay examines the IT productivity relationship using a large primary source firm-level dataset about IT investments that spans the 2003- 2005 period. The fourth essay explores what high-performing firms specifically do to gain the greatest benefits from their IT investments. The fifth essay shows a detailed, realistic e- business application scenario that exploits capabilities of new Semantic Web technologies.