With regard to the dependent variables, the impact of ICT on
financial business performance (ICT_F INP) was quantified through
the average of two items (ICT_F INP1 and ICT_F INP2) assessing
whether ICT had positive influence, no influence or negative
influence on firm’s revenue growth and productivity respectively.
The impact of ICT on the value offered to the customers (ICT_CUSV)
was quantified through the average of two items (ICT_CUSV1 and
ICT_CUSV2) assessing whether ICT had positive influence, no
influence or negative influence on the quality of customer service
and the on the quality of firm’s products and services respectively.
The impact of ICT on business processes performance (ICT_BPRO)
was quantified through the average of two items (ICT_BPRO1 and
ICT_BPRO2) assessing whether ICT had positive influence, no
influence or negative influence on the efficiency of business
416 E.N. Loukis, Y.K. Charalabidis / Computers in Industry 64 (2013) 412–420
processes and on internal work organization. Such items assessing
the perceived influence of ICT on various aspects of business
performance have been extensively used in previous empirical IS
research (e.g. [52–54]). Finally the impact of ICT on firm’s
innovation activity (ICT_INNO) was quantified through the average
of two dichotomous items (ICT_INNO1 and ICT_INNO2) assessing
whether the firm had introduced in the last 12 months any ICTbased
product/service or process innovation. These items have also
previous literature support, having been used in previous
empirical IS research (e.g. [56,57]. The formulas used for the
calculation of the above four dependent variables are: