Building Sustainable Competitive Advantage Through Organizational Information Systems’ Capabilities. A Case Study of the Nigerian e-payment Industry

Information Technology is a major underpinning for businesses in almost all industries today. In e-payment as it is with industry such as telecommunication, e-Commerce, and retail financial services, they owe their existence to Information Technology. There exists, however, a gap in understanding of the role of Information Technology in business in today’s world of Information Technology uniquity and homogeneity. There is a mistaken assumption among industry practitioners and researchers alike, that investment in information technology assets by itself confers an advantage on one firm over the other in the same industry in today’s business environment. This study has the objective to refocus the generation of rent from investment in information technology to more rare resources. The research is guided by the resource-based-view, capability-based view, and knowledge-based view of the firm.
A mixed method research approach was used for this. The mixed tool of questionnaire and interview was used based on embedded mixed method design to ensure very rounded research.
The research found that information systems produce sustainable competitive advantage for any firm that bases the generation of rent on information systems capabilities. This was established through both correlation and regression analysis of collected research data. The research established that the relationship between sustainable competitive advantage and information systems capabilities can be enhanced when other variables such as organizational agility and organizational knowledge management are considered.
The implication of this research is that organizations that seeks a sustained competitive edge over other industry players based on information technology should shift investment to organizational capability development, organizational learning, knowledge management away from random investment in information technology physical asset as this aspect of information systems is more unique and satisfies Barney’s VRIN test for sustainable competitive advantage. Based on this research, it is recommended that organizations invest in human capacity development and have a deliberate strategy to manage organizational knowledge as an answer to Schumpeterian competition.