The IT audit that boosts innovation

Gordon, S. R. and Tarafdar, Monideepa (2010) The IT audit that boosts innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 51 (4). pp. 39-47. ISSN 1532-9194

Abstract

Information technology systems are traditionally designed to impose structure on processes, while innovation activities require a tolerance for ambiguity and failure and the flexibility to redefine goals when opportunities or roadblocks arise. Yet the potential of information systems to improve the innovation process is too great to dismiss them out of hand. Undertaking research to learn how leading innovators have used IT to make their innovation activities more effective and efficient, the authors found that companies require three things in order to do so. First, they need specific IT-enabled organizational capabilities, which are formed by combining the IT assets with non-IT assets to enable the across-the-board processes essential to developing and applying innovations. Second, companies need a strong set of IT-based tools to effectively sustain the central activities required for innovation and to support the analytical work that innovators need to transfer ideas into products, processes and services. Third, companies need a system of control that allows workers to access and use the IT resources effectively. The authors' research provides numerous lessons for organization's innovation leaders, IT managers and top leadership – particularly the CEO.