Systems Effectiveness

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The fundamental objective of investment in information systems is to improve individual and group decision making performance, and ultimately organizational effectiveness (Raymond, 1990). Management is naturally eager to determine how a given system performs, in order to then assess the degree to which investment in the system has paid off, to take action (if need be) to improve the system performance, and to learn from the past experience in planning for the future. The evaluation of IS practices, policies, and procedures requires an effectiveness measure against which various strategies can be tested.

Measurement of systems effectiveness is particularly important in Egyptian organizations where IT implementation level, managerial practices, organizational resources (e.g., financial, technical, and skilled human resources), and cultural characteristics appear to be different, compared to most of the developed countries (i.e., USA and West European countries) (e.g., Abdul-Gader, 1999, p. 45; Straub et al., 2001; Watson et al., 1997). Also, since 1991, the Egyptian government has undertaken a number of legislative initiatives and plans for privatization that will likely lead to an increasingly open and competitive environment (Dolezal Jr., 1999). In this emerging new economy, IT is expected to significantly contribute to the managerial modernization of the Egyptian companies, which are under increasing pressure from global economic competitiveness, and face problems of low productivity. Effective utilization of IT applications and systems is tentative when policy makers and IS managers have little knowledge of the factors and the managerial practices that affect systems effectiveness.

The issue of systems effectiveness has generated much debate and consequent research interest over the years. Different groups of variables (e.g., personal, organizational, technological, etc.) have been investigated in order to explore their relationship to systems success or effectiveness. IS literature suggests that systems effectiveness depends on the "fit" between systems development efforts and the organizational context of use (e.g., Lucas, 1975; Robey & Zeller, 1978; Lee & Kim, 1992; Cheney & Dickson, 1982; Ein-Dor & Segev, 1982; Mawhinney & Lederer, 1990; Gremillion, 1984; Weill & Olson, 1989).

Organizational variables (e.g., organizational size, maturity, IS sophistication, management support, user involvement, culture) have been recognized to be important contributors to the successful planning and implementation of systems (e.g., Raymond, 1990; Ein-Dor & Segev, 1978). Nonetheless, consistent relationships among these variables and systems effectiveness have yet to emerge. This problem is further convoluted as developing countries attempt to adopt and manage IT systems that are designed and produced in developed countries. These systems are likely to be culturally biased in favor of the developed countries' social and cultural systems. This biasness possibly creates cultural and social obstacles for countries like Egypt to successfully transfer IT, and to develop and manage IT applications (e.g., Straub et al., 2002, 2001; Jayasuriya, 1999; Dasgupta et al., 1999; Hill et al., 1998).

Further, prior research on systems effectiveness has traditionally focused on developing and testing frameworks and models in Western organizations, with little consideration given to the extension and application of these frameworks and models to IS management in developing countries (Dasgupta et al., 1999). The disparity in the IT development level between developed and developing countries may cause the large part of the literature on systems effectiveness, which is based on experiences from developed countries, to be of limited relevance to IS management in Egyptian organizations.

There is a need to analyze and understand organizational, environmental, and cultural issues in adopting models, processes, and procedures used elsewhere when managing IS in developing countries (e.g., Jayasuriya, 1999; Watson et al., 1997). Evidence from investigating IS effectiveness and its relevant factors in a developing country like Egypt, and from using generally acceptable measures of systems effectiveness, should advance our knowledge of systems effectiveness in a global environment, and is expected to provide Egyptian policy makers and IS managers with insights as to how they can effectively manage the inadequate IS resources in their organizations.

However, without well-defined dependent variables, much of the information systems effectiveness research becomes highly speculative (Delone & Mclean, 1992). The difficulty encountered in developing direct and objective measures to assess systems effectiveness has led researchers to adopt surrogate constructs that are more easily measurable. Different perspectives of systems effectiveness have been adopted, and varying definitions and measures have been proposed (e.g., Li, 1997; Srinvasan, 1985). Approaches that have been suggested and used to measure systems effectiveness include cost/benefit analysis, improvement in decision making, user information satisfaction, and systems usage (e.g., Garrity & Sanders, 1998).

Delone and McLean (1992) explain that using multiple measures for system effectiveness is understandable, considering information as the output of an information system or the message in a communication system. Since this expanded view of systems effectiveness was recognized, many measures have been proposed and used by IS researchers, depending on the objectives and focus of their research.

System usage and user satisfaction are the two surrogate measures of systems effectiveness that are most popular among IS researchers and practitioners. A number of investigations employed only user satisfaction as a measure of systems effectiveness (e.g., Raymond & Bergeron, 1992; Guirmaraes & Gupta, 1988; Doll & Torkzadeh, 1988; Franz & Robey, 1986; Bailey & Pearson, 1983; Lucas, 1978; Tan & Lo, 1990). These investigations used different versions of user satisfaction measures, depending on the information systems type under investigation and the context of system use (e.g., office automation, end user computing, executive information systems, Internet-based systems).

A second group of investigations adopted only system usage to measure systems effectiveness (e.g., Igbaria, 1992; Mawhinney & Lederer, 1990; Delone, 1988; Swanson, 1987; Green & Hughes, 1986; Debrabander & Thiers, 1984; Gremillion, 1984; Raymond, 1984; Culnan, 1983; Ives, Olson, & Baroudi, 1983; Robey, 1979). A third group of investigations employed both user satisfaction and system usage as measures of systems effectiveness (e.g., Khalil & Elkordy, 1999, 1997; Raymond, 1990, 1985; Tait & Vessey, 1988; Nelson & Cheney, 1987; Ginzberg, 1981; Srinivasan, 1985; Alavi & Henderson, 1981).

Nonetheless, a number of researchers (e.g., Delone & McLean, 1992; Godwin, 1992; Melone, 1990; Ginzberg, 1978) argue that user satisfaction is a preferable measure of system effectiveness, since it has a high degree of face validity, and reliable and valid instruments for its measurement do exist. System usage is only an appropriate measure of effectiveness when usage is voluntary (e.g., Ives, Olson, & Baroudi, 1983).

This investigation has adopted both user information satisfaction and perceived system usage in improving decision making as the two measures of systems effectiveness. The adoption of these two measures should enable the comparison between the findings of this study and those of prior investigations that employed similar measures. The accumulation and comparison of findings from domestic/single country studies should enhance our understanding of IS effectiveness issues in a global environment.

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