Business Technology Organization—Managing Information for Value Creation - the Sigma Approach

In this book the author aims to describe the path from Information Technology to Information Management and Information Governance. This path allows organizations to identify IT Business Value and take advantage of it. The book synthesizes the main approaches that have emerged in recent years, compares these approaches along multiple variables, and finally proposes an advanced and new approach to Information Governance, based on the concept of Organizational Absorptive Capacity. Furthermore, the book presents a new approach to Information Management: the SIGMA (Strategic Information Governance Modelling and Assessment) approach. The new approach is centered on information as a key factor allowing integration between IT applications, organizational capabilities and business strategy. In particular, the Absorptive Capacity concept is presented and discussed: this concept represents the ability of an organization to maintain and absorb the potential of information and IT investments. After having presented and discussed the model, we also provide the reader with a brief presentation of how the SIGMA approach should be applied in companies. The book adopts a scientific approach to ensure methodological rigour; however, it is also concrete and describes problems from the viewpoints of managers, adopting a clear and easy-to-understand language in order to capture the interest of top managers and graduate students.

Vincenzo Morabito, (Ph.D.), is a Professor of Information Systems and of Organization and Information Systems at Bocconi University in Milan (Italy), where he also serves as Director of the Master of Management Information Systems. His latest papers are on the Communications of the ACM, European Journal of Information Systems, International Journal of Technology Management and Journal of Information Technology. He has previously been a visiting research scholar at MIT and the University of Florida.