Role Of It Resources On Positional Advantage A Study On Insurance And Banking Sector In Sudan

Abstract

Sudan like most developing countries has not yet completely benefiting from all the opportunities that may be provided by هinformation technology (IT) to create changes in the organization work as well as the industry structure which enables them to create positional advantage. On the other hand, the mechanism through which IT affects positional advantage has limitedly conceptualized in the literature. The study aims to clarify the role of IT on positional advantage by identifying the impact of IT resources on positional advantage through investigating the mediating role of some organization capabilities, specifically dynamic capability and IT capability, and the moderating effect of the environmental factors on the Sudanese banking and insurance sectors. A model was designed to evaluate the impact of IT resources on positional advantage based on IT business value, resource base view and dynamic base view. The main hypotheses of this study are: There is a positive relationship between IT resources and organization capabilities; there is a positive relationship between organization capabilities and positional advantage; organization capabilities mediate the relationship between organization resource and positional advantage; the relationship between organization capabilities; and positional advantage is positively related to environmental factors. The primary data were collected through comprehensive survey techniques by questionnaires. The data of the first questionnaire, which were collected from the functional managers, has been designed to assess the positional advantage, the organizational dynamic capabilities and environmental factors. The data of the second questionnaire, which is collected from the senior IT staff, has been designed to judge the IT resources and capabilities. Various data analysis procedures were applied including reliability analysis, descriptive analysis, multiple and hierarchy regression analysis. The findings of study indicated that enterprise computing technology influence IT capabilities, the IT capabilities does not moderate the relationship between IT resources and positional advantage and the organizational dynamic capabilities affect the positional advantage. The findings also reveled that environmental factors moderate the relationship between organizational dynamic capability and positional advantage. The study recommended that banking and insurance institutions should focus on how to benefit from all IT resources in order to support the organizational dynamic capability and positional advantage. Detailed discussion and recommendations were provided and future research directions had been highlighted.