**3. Methodology**

*Strategy and Behaviors in the Digital Economy*

mation systems success for this purpose.

been used to form the models discussed.

**No. Basic IT strategy methods Literature sources**

2 Porter's generic strategies Levy et al. [61]

5 Customer resource life cycle Levy et al. [61] 6 Porter's five competitive forces model Levy et al. [61] 7 Sector information management grid Levy et al. [61]

 stages of growth models Levy et al. [61] Balanced scorecard Levy and Powell [62] Transaction cost Blili and Raymond [6] PESTEL Levy and Powell [62]

14 Soft systems methodology Levy and Powell [62] 15 3D model of IS success Levy and Powell [62]

17 MIT'90 Levy and Powell [62]

13 Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA)

1 Strategic opportunities framework Levy et al. [61], Benjamin et al. [63]

Azyabi [7] conducted a study of 34 SMEs in the Victorian State of Australia that used IT strategic development methods, perceived benefits, and encountered barriers, as pointed out in the previous section and motivated to conduct this study

the competitive environment. These three analyses can be performed by some basic methods such as CSFs, PESTEL, balanced scorecard, and information intensity matrix. The business process analysis is concerned with three aspects: determining the processes that add value for the business, reviewing if the organization is using the appropriate IT to perform the core processes, and finally, analyzing the organization's current IT tools and functions. These analyses are to be accomplished through some basic methods such as value chain method, Strategic Information Systems Grid, and soft systems methodology (SSM). The strategic content analysis aims to provide recognition for the required IT that can satisfy the organization's objectives. They suggested such techniques as MIT'90 and the 3D model of infor-

Salas et al. [63] within the Australian context provided an approach to IT strategy development that was based on the Blili and Raymond's [6] work. The model consists of two complementary views: top-down which is done by top management to identify the business objectives and environment and bottom-up which is done by operational managers to analyze the major processes. Both views are targeted to specify the required IT to fulfill the business objectives. They adapted the Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA) model to perform the top-down view and business process analysis and modeling to perform the bottom-up tasks. **Table 1** list IT strategy basic development methods that have

3 Information intensity matrix Levy et al. [61], Levy and Powell [62] 4 Porter's value chain Blili and Raymond [6], Levy et al. [61],

8 Strategic information systems grid Levy et al. [61], Levy and Powell [62]

16 Critical success factors (2000) Blili and Raymond [6], Levy and Powell

Levy and Powell [62]

Salas et al. [63]

[62]

**148**

**Table 1.**

*IT strategy basic development methods.*

#### **3.1 The instrument**

The purpose of this study was purely descriptive in nature. Creswell [64] suggested that descriptive research is to collect data about an existing situation or issue. Yin [65] suggested that survey is an appropriate method for descriptive research. In the light of the above cited discussion, a questionnaire adapted after an Australian study [7] was used for this study. The questionnaire consists of two parts, starting with Section A that collects information on the demographical data about the respondents, organizations, and IT functions. Section B collects information about the IT strategy development methods. Section B is further divided into four parts: collecting information about awareness framework, opportunity frameworks, positioning frameworks, and other frameworks. The data is collected on five-point Likert scale starting with 1 as "fully used," 2 as "partially used," 3 as "familiar and has indirect influence," 4 as "familiar but not used," and finally, 5 as "unfamiliar." So their final mean values of less than 3.00 mean either fully or partially used, and mean values around 3.00 indicate familiar but indirect effect, and finally, mean values of above 4 indicate either not used or unfamiliar with the strategic development.
