【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 pital. Brynjolfsson and Hitt also found a strong relationship between IT and productivity growth and taht this relationship grows stronger as longer time periods are considered. Collectively ,these studies suggest that there is no productivity paradox, at least when the analysis is performed across industries using firmlevel data. The differences between these results and earlier studies is probably due to the use of data taht was recent , more prehensice ,and more disaggregated (firm level rather than industry or economy level). 　　Most previous sutdies have considered the effects of technology across firms in multiple industries, although a few studies have considered the role of technology in specifically in the banking industry. Steiner and Teixiera surveyed the banking industry and argued that while large investments in technology clearly had value,little of this value was being captured by the banks themselves。 most of the benefits were being passed on to customers as a result of intense petition. Alpar and Kim examined the cost efficiency of banks overall and found that IT investment was associatied with greater cost efficiency although the effects were less evident when financial ratios were used as the oute measure. Prasad and Harkere examined the relationship between technology investment and performance for 47 retail banks and found positive benefits of investments in IT staff.　　 While these studies show a strong positive contribution of IT investment on average, they do not consider how this contribution (or level of investment )varies across firms. Brynjolfsson and Hitt found that firm effects can account for as much as half the contribution of IT found in these earlier studies. Recent results suggest that at least part of these differences can be explained by differences in organizational and strategic factors. Brynjolfsson and Hitt found that firms that use greater overall IT benefits. Bresnehan, Brynjolfsson and Hitt found a similar result for firms that have greater levels of skills and those that make greater investments in training and preemployment screening for human capital . In addition, strategic factors also appear to affect the value of IT. Firms that invest in IT to create customer value (. improve service, timeliness, convenience, variety) have greater performance than firms that invest in IT to reduce costs.　　 While these studies are begining to explore how the performance of IT investment varies across firm, particularly due to organizational and strategic factors, little attention has been paid to the technology decision making process.How Financial Firms Decide on Technology(Part Four) 　　IT Investment Decisions　　While there is no concise definition of best practice in IT investment decisions, there are a number of consistent arguments advanced in the IT management literature that can be synthesized into an understanding of the conventional wisdom.　　For the pruposes of discussion it is useful to subdivide the process of IT management into seven discrete, but interrelated processes. The first six processes are oriented around the proposal, development and management of IT projects, while the last process is about maintaining the capabilities of the IT function and its interrelationships with the rest of the business:　　 of IT opportunities　　 opportunities　　 IT projects　　 makebuy decision　　 IT projects　　 IT projects　　 and Develop the IT Function　　This subdivision loosely corresponds to many of the major issues in IT management such as outsourcing, line managementIT alignment, software project management, and evaluating IT investments.　　In addition, this list loosely corresponds to frameworks for the management of IT. The primary difference is that this list views the IT management process as managing a stream of projects rather than focusing on the function of the IT department overall or the role of the CIO, the typical perspective in the previous literature. For example, a mon framework used to align IT to business starategy, the critical success factors(CSF) method, include three workshops: the first to identify and focus objectives, the second to decide and prioritize on systems investment, and the third to develop, deploy and reevaluate prototype systems. Boynton, Jacobs and Zmud(1992) identify five critical IT management processes: setting strategic direction, establishing infrastructure systems, scanning technology, transferring technology and developing systems. Rockart, Earl and Ross(1996) propose eight imperatives for the IT organization which can be grouped into managing the ITbusiness relationship, building and managing systems and infrastructure, managing vendors, and creating a high performance IT organization. Thus, while previous work has subdivided the process in different ways, collectively the studies cover all the seven processes we examine.　　We will discuss each of the individual points in detail below.　　Identificant of Opportunities　Historically, the IT function was primarily reactive, responding to requests by business units. A business unit. A business unit manager would identify a need for a new system or a repair/enhancement to an existing system and municate this need to the IT function. The IT personnel would then