An Explorative Study on Business Processes and Information Systems in Electrical Construction Firms: A Case Study Approach

Electrical construction firms use different types of information systems to deal with various business processes. Although in theory researchers find that information systems can help improving productivity, in reality electrical construction firms still suffer from the lack of understanding to the value of information systems. Previous studies have suggested many reasons why construction firms lag in adopting information technology. Through case studies, this paper, exploring the application of information systems to electrical construction firms based on the Resource-Based View (RBV) theory, suggests that the focus of existing applications is mainly on mediating internally-oriented business processes. The resulting capabilities may not necessarily help electrical construction firms translate the value of information systems into their long-term competitive advantage. Consequently, future studies are recommended to determine whether computer-mediated externally-oriented business processes should be identified, developed and integrated with the internally-oriented business processes.