Does IT Capability Facilitate Technology Agility? Empirical Research From South Korea

The prime objective of this study is to investigate how a firm’s information technology (IT) capabilities facilitate its technological agility and competitive advantages. Drawing from the resource-based view and dynamic capability framework, the authors propose that information technology capability—IT infrastructure, IT operations, IT personnel, and IT investment—play an essential role in a firm’s ability to sense and adopt new technologies to exploit subsequent opportunities. Then, the study conceptualizes the ability of enterprises to sense and respond to new technologies with technological agility. It then tests the hypotheses against a sample of 731 South Korean businesses. The results indicate that IT infrastructure, IT operations, and IT personnel all have a significant positive effect on technological agility and that technological agility can promote firm performance. Furthermore, the empirical results show that IT investment contributes to improvements in technology sensing but does not affect technology adoption.