The Effect of Application of Information Technology on Organizational Agility Using the Fuzzy Method (Case Study of the Informatics Services Corporation)

Abstract

Agility has an undeniable effect on organization success in<br />the present changing markets, and information technology (IT) is a major<br />facilitating factor in business activities of organizations nowadays,<br />as about more than a half of present organizations capitals is based on<br />IT. Therefore, assessment of the IT application level and organizational<br />agility, and study of the effect of application of IT on organizational<br />agility will enable organizations to identify solutions to maximize their<br />investments and utilization of IT in order to achieve agility or improve<br />organizational agility and gain competitive advantages. According to<br />previous studies, no codified and well-known method has been presented<br />to determine the effect of IT on organizational agility. For instance, an<br />organization may be able to adapt to changes of business environment<br />using IT, but may lack agility due to enormous costs it bears. Hence, application of IT brings about agility to an organization where it not<br />only is effective for keeping up with changes [14], but also is cost effective<br />to have a greater share of the market. The present study was aimed<br />to evaluate the effect of application of IT on organizational agility. To<br />this end, components and indexes were first identified to measure application<br />of IT application and organizational agility levels through desk<br />studies and using expert opinions. Next, two questionnaires were prepared<br />whose validity was confirmed by the experts and whose reliability<br />was confirmed by calculating the Cronbach's alpha. Since the organization<br />under study was the Informatics Services Corporation (ISC), a<br />50-member statistical sample was selected from a statistical population<br />of about 70 members, the questionnaires were distributed among the<br />participants, and 41 of them were used finally. The level of application<br />of IT to ISC was “tested" and its agility was calculated to be agile using<br />fuzzy logics. Secondary fuzzy hypotheses were formulated using the<br />obtained levels and the hypotheses were examined through the fuzzy<br />hypothesis test and fuzzy deduction test. The primary and secondary<br />hypotheses were studied and proved in the next step. Finally, the effect<br />of application of IT on organizational agility of ISC was assessed to be<br />high.