Do managers and IT professionals view the business value of information technology differently?

Even as firms continue to invest substantially to develop and maintain their information technology assets, the means of judging the impact of those investments remain highly fragmented. The focus of scholars and their assessment methods varies substantially. To gain better insight into the business value returned from the spending of companies for information technology, an investigation involving 146 executives and managers and 61 IT professionals was conducted. The investigation explored factors associated with eleven business-value related themes and thirty-five individual factors identified in advance by independent group of senior IT directors. The findings clearly show a large number of areas where both managers and IT professionals agree on contributors and detractors from business value. Where differences were identified, it was clear that expectations related to the development and use of IT assets varied.