The "IT productivity paradox" revisited : international comparisons of information technology, work organisation and productivity in service industries

Although many authors now regard the "IT productivity paradox" as an issue which has been resolved at firm level (at least in the US), some puzzles still remain at industry and national economy level. In this article we have explored the relationship between IT investments and relative labour productivity performance through comparisons of matched samples of banking and hotel establishments in the US, Germany and Britain. In both industries a lack of correspondence between country productivity ranking and the incidence of different kinds of IT usage was attributable to inter-country differences in (1) the timing of IT investments and of adaptation of work organisation to take full advantage of the productivity-enhancing potential of IT; (2) the mix of product strategies deployed by service establishments; and (3) the supply of complementary assets required to secure high levels of pay-off to IT investments.