Information technology evaluation: classifying indirect costs using the structured case method

Many companies are increasing their expenditure on information technology and information systems (IT/IS) to obtain or even sustain a competitive advantage in their respective marketplaces. Many managers, however, are often left with the quandary of how to evaluate their investments in technologies. Reasons of this difficulty have been suggested in the normative literature as centring on the socio‐technical (human, organisational and technical) dimensions associated with the adoption of IT/IS. The inability of managers to determine the true costs of deploying IT/IS is considered attributable to a lack of knowledge and understanding of IT/IS related costs. In developing a broader picture of such cost dimensions and their respective taxonomies, the research presented in this paper uses a structured case method to gain an understanding of how a construction firm embraced the IT evaluation process. A review of the IT cost literature is presented and a conceptual IT evaluation framework that focuses on indirect costs is proposed.