feasible during the early years. Most of the early literature was anecdotal, mentioning early examples of systems, but lacking references to authoritative papers or case studies. Indeed, details about many of the leading cases only became widely available many years later, e.g. American Airlines (Copeland & McKenney 1988), McKesson (Clemons & Row 1988), and American Hospital Supply [now Baxter] (Main & Short 1989, Venkatraman & Short 1990). The early papers and books focussed on the 'competitive advantage' which IT could lead to, and were optimistic, even 'upbeat'. It is certainly not contended that these sources were unquestioning, nor that they contained no seeds of the subsequent developments in the theory of strategic application of IT. They were, however, very positive in the tone in which they discussed IT's contribution to corporate strategy. During the period following 1985, as experience was gathered and deeper studies were reported on, the literature became somewhat more circumspect. The new materials focussed less on the opportunities than on the processes and the pitfalls. Progressively, a collection of qualifications arose to the initial, relatively 'naive' theory (Miron et al 1988, Karimi & Konsynski 1991, Galliers 1993, Kettinger et al 1994). Associated with this phase were new, and often more ambiguous, case studies, including Philadelphia National Bank (Clemons 1990), CALM (Clarke & Jenkins 1993), Minitel (Cats-Baril & Jelassi 1994) and MSAS Cargo (Ives & Jarvenpaa 1994). One series of papers focussed not on companies which adopted a successful leadership role in the application of IT, but rather on those which followed. They recognised that where one corporation achieved a significant competitive advantage, it quickly became incumbent on its competitors to neutralise that advantage, and hence to avoid 'competitive disadvantage' (Vitale 1986, Warner 1987, Brousseau 1990). The notion of 'competitive necessity' was creat...
