PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss how managers use knowledge when making ICT investment decisions. ICT investments are complex processes and also have strategic implications for organizations. The focus of the study is to reveal how the organizational process of knowledge creation affects the individual‐level of decision making and how knowledge conversions between tacit and explicit knowledge occur in this process.Design/methodology/approachThe data consists of information collected by six semi‐structured interviews from six small‐ or medium‐sized companies. Knowledge use in ICT investment decision making is analyzed qualitatively and found categories of the different decision maker types are presented.FindingsIn ICT investments, there are three contributing factors: problem, product, and provider. The results show significant differences in how the tacit and explicit dimensions of knowledge act by forming a cognitive model of decision‐makers' use of knowledge.Research limitations/implicationsOwing to the qualitative approach, the findings do not show the frequencies of a certain type of a decision maker in the SMEs in general.Practical implicationsTo be more effective, the models of ICT investment decision making for SMEs should emphasise the tacit knowledge used in the process.Originality/valueThe paper presents rare empirical findings on how the decision makers in the SME context use knowledge in their ICT investment processes.

Abstract. This paper reports on the results of a test on a Co-operative Software Acquisition (COSA) model in which the users carry out the ICT investment by themselves. The existing models meant to help in the ICT investments process are too heavy and technical to be used in SMEs. A successful ICT investment is an organisational change process in which people have a critical role. The COSA model applies user participation and team-working in the acquisition of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software products. The model is designed bearing three objectives in mind: 1) business orientation, 2) agility, and 3) practicality. The model can be applied to ICT investments in SMEs which have a professional team leader with basic business and IT knowledge. The results show that people are willing to commit to the COSA process, but problems exist related to systems thinking, decision making and risk taking.