The quest to contain spending on IT frequently backfires, forcing companies and governments to increase expenditures on IT maintenance, repairs and other unproductive practices, according to the results of a global study released today by Accenture.

Accenture"s "IT investing for high performance" study surveyed CIOs from more than 300 Fortune 1000 companies and similar-sized organizations.

The survey is intended to identify the common underlying behaviors and characteristics of high-performance businesses.

Accenture defines high-performance businesses as those that consistently outperform their peers in revenue, profit growth and total return to shareholders.

The study determined that the universal goal of using IT to achieve more with less remains elusive, as survey respondents cited an inability to close the gap between goals and results, despite average IT spending increases of 9 percent last year.

This paradox stems from what Accenture calls an "austerity trap", which lures companies and governments into believing that they can freeze -- or even cut -- IT budgets while maintaining the same level of service.

The trap forces behaviors such as retaining outmoded legacy systems, instead of deploying new technologies, leading to higher costs -- both in maintenance and lost productivity -- in the long term.

What is more, many companies launch labor-cutting initiatives that also contribute to lost productivity, while failing to achieve the intended savings.

A rise in costly government-mandated compliance requirements and, for some companies, increased expenses associated with the post-merger integration of IT systems has combined with the austerity trap to form a "perfect storm" that is diverting IT budgets, often leaving an inadequate amount of capital for investing in controllable earnings growth and productivity.

"Our study indicates that there is a significant difference in the level of investing versus maintaining between high and low-performing IT organizations," says Bob Suh, Accenture"s chief technology strategist, and the executive who headed up the study.

"Poor spending quality is characterized by a high proportion of time spent on maintaining and fixing systems versus investing in productivity-driving change."

For example, study respondents reported that 39 percent of time is spent running and fixing applications, while only 14 percent of time is spent building new applications.

"More than half of government respondents told us that they are spending too much time on fixing their existing applications, and too little time on building new ones," says Marty Cole, group chief executive, government operating group.

"They want to do more. But they are being given about 30 percent more work with only about 5 percent to 10 percent more budget. Consequently, innovation is being curbed, and productivity is being undermined."