IT Governance in Post-Adoption Stages of CRM Diffusion: An Institutional Perspective

Drawing upon the structuration theory of technology assimilation and the literature on IT governance, this study develops a conceptual model to examine the role of IT governance in post-adoption stages of CRM diffusion. We conceptualize decision execution mechanisms of IT governance as including two dimensions-vertical advocacy from top management and horizontal coordination between business and IT managers, which are assumed to facilitate CRM use and value creation. We analyze a dataset of 82 Chinese firms. Our results show that: (1) vertical advocacy and horizontal coordination, significantly contribute to the three stages of CRM diffusion; (2) vertical advocacy has a greater effect on CRM diffusion than horizontal coordination; (3) CRM use creates operational and strategic benefits in customer-oriented business processes, which further improves firm performance.