Research Method

With basis in the requirements to causal research models (Bollen, 1989; Churchill, 1995; Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 1996), a quantitative approach was chosen, with a cross sectional design. To answer the research questions, a questionnaire was developed to measure the different variables. It was important to find a setting where one would surely find variation in end user's choices of different support sources. It was also important to find a setting that was homogeneous. Homogeneity diminishes the danger with alternative predecessors that might create spurious relations (Mitchell, 1985). To ensure a homogenous setting and variation in the end user's answers, a large organization in Norway was chosen (more than 800 employees).

IS-professionals were not included in the survey. The reason was most IS-professionals seldom utilize support personnel. The population was therefore selected to be all non-IS-professionals in the organization.

The Independent Variable (Support Usage):

Through the studies of Lee (1986), Larsen (1989), Delone and McLean; Compeau and Higgins (1995b); Blili et al. (1997), I found three different aspects on the measure of usage: time spent, frequency and exploitation ratio.

Since this research project had a time limit, time spent would be difficult to measure. To measure time spent, one must be sure that the respondents record the time they spend on support usage for a specific period of time. Most end users don't want to be bothered with these things and their answer to such a survey would probably be an estimate anyway. Exploitation ratio measures if a support service is of any use to the respondent. It will not measure in what degree the respondents utilizes different support-services, which was the aim of this study. Therefore frequency seemed the best measure to use. Blili et al.'s instrument was changed to fit the aims of the study. The measure was: How often do you utilize different support sources when using your computer? Different sources were divided into these categories: informal support sources, traditional support sources, internal documentation and external documentation. Frequency was measured with five categories, from less than once a month to several times a day.

Since there is limited research on support usage, and since this instrument never had been tested before, I chose to develop an alternative instrument. This alternative instrument tested for different error situations and asked the respondent which support source would be his first choice if a specific problem were to arise.

Pre-tests and later factor analysis showed the alternative instrument was better, and this instrument was chosen to measure the end users' use of different support sources.

Computer Self-Efficacy was measured with Compeau and Higgins's (1995b) instrument. The different items focus on the degree to which the respondent masters the use of new software with different levels of support.

An instrument on IT-Involvement developed by Barki and Hartwick (1994) was pre-tested in the organization. The scale was difficult to translate to Norwegian and the items that were chosen to measure different aspects of the concept were quite similar. A newly developed instrument developed by my mentor Øystein Sørebø was adopted. This instrument measured the importance and personal relevancy an end user expresses towards the computer and use of it.

The IT-skills instrument was developed based on Cheney and Nelson's (1988) instrument. The respondents were asked to indicate to what degree they used different software and to indicate their level of skill within the different types of software.

In addition to the variables chosen for measuring different end user qualities, three control variables were included. These were giving collegial support, direct access to IS-professionals and IC relationship. The variable giving collegial support measures to what degree the respondent gives collegial support to fellow workers. Direct access to IS-professionals shows if the respondents have direct access to IS-professionals in the same office location. IC relationship defines the respondents' relationships to the information centre on a scale from very good to very bad. Further reviews (through test-respondents) showed that the questionnaire was missing an alternative choice in problem solving. This was solving the problem themselves. I, therefore, added this dependent variable to the questionnaire.

The questionnaire was sent to 670 employees. Two hundred and seventy-seven usable questionnaires were returned, which gave a 41.3 percent response rate.



Computing Information Technology. The Human Side
Computing Information Technology: The Human Side
ISBN: 1931777527
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 186

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