Implications, Conclusion and Recommendations

The results show IT-skills might be of importance for the use of formal support services. The negative covariance indicates that formal support services, first of all, would be of use for the novice end users. Earlier discussions point out end users might demand more and better services, from the formal support sources, the higher their IT-skills. My survey does not support these viewpoints. One could expect the enquiries from expert end users would be of such specific nature, the formal support service would not be competent enough to solve such problems. Since I do not have a measure on the actual qualifications possessed by the formal support services in the organization, the answer to this anticipation seems very uncertain. But it might indicate that one, by increasing support qualifications naturally, will be able to help a bigger group of end-users.

The results also show there is a negative covariance between IT-skills and the use of Internal documentation, i.e., the higher IT-skills the less the use of internal documentation. This could imply that the quality of the internal documentation is not good enough. Maybe most internal documents are made for novice users, explaining basic use of different software. The quality of the internal documentation is not measured in this survey, and therefore it will be difficult to point out that documentation quality would impact (indirectly) on the end users' use of internal documentation. Later studies on the subject should therefore contain a measure on the perceived quality of internal and external documentation.

An indication that shows the data collected is quite reliable is the result that shows a positive covariance between high IT-skills and the variable solving the problem themselves. This covariance is expected, and any other result would be suspicious. Another result that indicates reliability is the result showing the end users giving collegial support negatively covariates with the use of formal support sources.

The hypotheses regarding Computer Self-Efficacy shows a negative covariance towards the use of informal support sources (H2b), and a positive covariance towards the use of external documentation and towards solving the problem themselves. This could imply end users, with a high degree of computer self-efficacy, basically want to solve the problems themselves, either by using external documentation and/or by solving the problems without the use of any support sources. That indicates these end users probably have such high beliefs about themselves they don't see themselves as people needing any help from others. They would expect that no others could solve the problem any faster than themselves anyway.

It is important to notice, when the control variables are included, Computer Self-Efficacy is no longer a valid factor in explaining the use of external documentation. That might indicate a spurious connection. By testing covariance between Computer Self-Efficacy and access to a computer expert, I found no covariance. That again might indicate the strong covariance (beta value: -0,17), between access to a computer expert and the use of external documentation, confounds the effect of Computer Self Efficacy. I would, therefore suggest to test for this in future surveys to clarify the uncertainty around the model.

The results regarding IT-involvement only show covariance with the use of formal support sources. Another survey conducted at almost the same time as mine shows the exact same result (Haukedalen, 1998, p. 65). This indicates end users with a high degree of IT-involvement use formal sources of support more. The reason why might be, these end users show a bigger interest in computers and computer technology, and therefore are eager to solve IS-related problems. The formal support source might also work as an information channel for these end users. As their involvement towards IT is higher, they show more general interest for IT, and therefore have the need to get answers regarding information technology.

The results of this survey clearly indicate specific end user qualities affect the end user's choice of support source. I, therefore, recommend organizations to improve these basic qualities of the end user, instead of only providing the traditional support services. Not only should the employees attend training courses to improve these basic qualities, one should also seek to improve the end users' Self-Efficacy and involvement towards computers and computer technology. Especially IT-involvement should be increased. By increasing this quality, one will make the end users use formal support services more often, which again can lead to more effective employees. One must take into mind, although an end-user has high IT-skills and a high magnitude of computer self-efficacy, it does not automatically mean that he/she will solve IT-related problems faster than the formal support group can. For example, if end users feel they are sufficiently qualified to solve IT-related problems, they may well spend days doing exactly this, whereas calling the IT support staff could have solved the problem within minutes.

By increasing end users IT-involvement and by improving quality and increasing availability of the IT support staff, employees would likely become more effective in their everyday work.

In addition, support personnel ought to aim to provide the end users relevant knowledge every time they need help to solve a problem. Bento (1996) talks about doers and facilitators, when speaking of different types of support personnel. It is not enough that support personnel just solve the problem and leave (doers). They must also transfer the knowledge to the end user, so that the end user more easily can confront the next problem situation they face (facilitators).

It is nevertheless important to notice this survey has been done with data materials from one big Norwegian organization. This does not mean the results and recommendations in this survey would apply to any other arbitrary organization. More research is needed to generalize the conclusions made in this survey.



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

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