International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, 11(1), 1-16, January-March 2015 1 Copyright © 2015, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. ABSTRACT In-spite of intense research, the link between IT investment and IT pay-off in frms is still not well understood. Differences in ontological assumptions and inconsistent measures of IT pay-off are observed in prior research, leading to fragmented and inconclusive fndings on return from IT investment. Diffculty in controlling for confounding factors of time lag between IT investment and availability of IT systems and IT enabled business processes, effects of non-IT managerial efforts such as marketing and fnance, convolute fndings from prior research. This research draws from stakeholder theory, goal-setting and expectancy theories of motivation, IT/Business alignment and IS success theories, and quality management literature and proposes a model of IT pay-off that partly controls for some of the stated confounding effects. Attempt is made to empirically demonstrate through the model that IT pay-off is better understood by shifting focus from dollar value of IT investment to the motivation for and qualities of systems and IT enabled business processes structured with the IT investment, and investigating their impacts on process quality, operational effciency and specifc frm performance measures that can be related to IT investment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. IT Pay-Off: Tracing the Antecedents Probir Kumar Banerjee, Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak, Malaysia Keywords: Business Process Quality, Firm Performance, IT-Business Alignment, IT Pay-Off, Organizational Motivation INTRODUCTION In-spite of intense research, the link between IT investment and IT pay-off in firms is still not well understood. Differences in ontological assumptions and inconsistent measures of IT pay-off are observed in prior research, leading to fragmented and inconclusive findings. For example, Farhoomand & Huang (2007) take a deterministic view in their study of IT invest- ment impact on a bank and attribute increased customer numbers and sales growth to the impact of new technologies introduced in the bank. The same deterministic view is observed in the work of Rajan & Tamimi (2003), who compared the impact of IT investment on stock- price performance of ISO 9000 firms and those indexed in S&P Index and found that IT invest- ment in ISO firms resulted in higher stock price compared to those listed in S&P indexed firms. However, in another similar research, Dobija et al (2012) observed that though IT invest- ment decisions had some positive influence on stock price movement, the influence was more pronounced when procurement of IT was from global brand leaders, and the firms acquiring IT had good prior record of IT management. This suggests that IT investment impact is contingent on quality of services of IT providers and the firm’s ability to govern and use IT effectively in their decision to purchase stocks of a firm, which hinges on the social-constructionist view DOI: 10.4018/ijthi.2015010101