This study elucidates the nature of information technology (IT) capabilities by developing an integrated framework that expounds upon the hierarchy inherent within IT capabilities. This research uses qualitative interviews with 64 IT professionals grounded in the resource-based theory to delineate three layers of IT capabilities. At the foundational level, IT capabilities reflect firms’ IT-related assets, encompassing IT infrastructure, informational, and enabled assets that are valuable, rare, and inimitable. Higher up, firms’ IT capabilities manifest through competence in organising these IT-related assets effectively. Operational IT competence is instrumental in mobilising and deploying each IT-related asset, while dynamic IT capabilities represent firms’ capacity to reconfigure and assimilate various operational IT competencies. This research contributes to the field by providing an integrative theoretical understanding of how IT capabilities are formed. The proposed model addresses fragmentation in the existing literature, facilitating the development of more cohesive, evidence-based strategies for generating business value from IT.

本研究通过开发一个综合框架来阐述信息技术 (IT) 能力的本质，该框架阐述了 IT 能力固有的层次结构。这项研究以基于资源的理论为基础，对 64 名 IT 专业人员进行了定性访谈，描述了 IT 能力的三个层次。在基础层面上，IT 能力反映了企业的 IT 相关资产，包括有价值、稀有且无法模仿的 IT 基础设施、信息和可用资产。从更高的角度来看，公司的 IT 能力通过有效组织这些 IT 相关资产的能力来体现。运营IT能力对于调动和部署每项IT相关资产至关重要，而动态IT能力则代表企业重新配置和吸收各种运营IT能力的能力。这项研究通过提供对 IT 能力如何形成的综合理论理解来对该领域做出贡献。所提出的模型解决了现有文献中的碎片化问题，有助于开发更具凝聚力、基于证据的策略，以从 IT 中产生业务价值。