A Strategic Approach for IT use in the Egyptian banking industry

An empirical study that explored the information intensive Egyptian banking industry is featured in this project information technology IT use in the less developed countries LDCs,has drawn some research attention in the last decade. however, few studies have examined the organisational issuse of IT use in these countries. The aim of this study was to identify the organisational practices that contribute to and enhance the level of sophistication of IT use, at the business unit the frim level in a LDC context. Multipe sources of information were used to collect data about IT use and its organisational context from the major firms dominating the Egyptian banking industry. Sources included written and interview based information, all the available planning documentation, reports; and financial atatements of these firms Evidence was sought for the relationship between the level of sophistication of IT use and seven selected organisational factors. the selected organisational factors( the independent variables) and their constructs were identified throug a literature review and refined by a pilot study. The study revealed that ”chief executive support was the central organisational factor enabling these firms to achieve their current levels of IT use, and also had an influence in some other signicant organisational factors such as: IT management climate and IT managerial knowledge Some other factors, which have been considered important by the research community such as: firm-wide planning IT organisational design IT plnning and the integration between IT and business group were found to contribute in an insignificant way to the degree of IT use in rhese firms. The study concluded with a working model that conceptualises the organisational context of IT use in term of its components and behaviour in the different levels of IT-based transformation process.