Research Hypotheses

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Top Management Support and Systems Effectiveness

There is a general agreement in IS literature that greater top management support for a system will lead to greater system effectiveness (Yap, Soh, & Roman, 1992; Lee & Kim, 1992; Magal & Carr, 1988; Markus, 1981). Top management support includes adoption of a broad IS vision and leadership, alignment of IS strategies with business strategies, allocation of organizational resources to support its IS vision and communication of its commitment to all members of the organization. Cultural acceptance of systems in an organization cannot be attained without the top management's political clout (Abdul-Gader, 1999, p. 100).

Top management support has been proposed as an important determinant of systems effectiveness in a number of studies (e.g., Furest & Cheney, 1982; Igbaria, 1992, 1993; Doll, 1985; Robey & Zeller, 1978; Ein-Dor & Segev, 1978; Lee & Kim, 1992; Rockart & Crescenzi, 1984). However, these studies exhibited mixed results. Some showed a positive relationship with systems effectiveness (e.g., Garrity, 1983; Igbaria, 1992, 1993; Yap, Soh, & Roman, 1992), while others indicated a negative relationship with systems effectiveness (e.g., Fuerst & Cheney, 1982).

Further, top managers in developing countries are expected to play a far more proactive and critical role than in a developed country in order to ensure a smooth and successful system implementation (Jain, 1995). Perez (1980) stresses the lack of top management awareness of systems impact on organizational processes as a barrier to systems diffusion in developing countries (p.69). In addition, the empirical evidence from Arab countries, i.e., Arab Gulf Countries (AGC), suggests that systems effectiveness is likely to depend on top management support (Abdul-Gader, 1990).

Further, compared to Westerners, Arabs, including Egyptians, demonstrate more power distance (reflected in high centralization and autocratic leadership) and more uncertainty avoidance (manifested in high formalization and low tolerance to ambiguity) (Hofstede, 1980; Kassem & Al-Modaifer, 1987; Bjerke & Al-Meer, 1993). Most Arab organizations (public or private) are highly centralized and adopt an authoritative structure, regardless of corporate strategy or technology (Ali, 1990). As such, one can expect top management support to be particularly important to systems effectiveness, since resources allocation decisions, including IT investment decisions, are very much centralized in a culture that promotes uncertainty avoidance and obedience of rules.

The relationship between top management support and system effectiveness was investigated by testing the following two hypotheses:

H1: The higher the level of top management support, the higher the level of user information satisfaction.

H2: The higher the level of top management support, the higher the level of system use in improving decision making.

User Involvement

User involvement refers to the participation in the system development process by the representatives of the target user group (Ives & Olson, 1984). Barki and Hartwick (1994) argued for a distinction between user participation and user involvement. They defined user involvement as a psychological state, which refers to the importance and personal relevance of a system to its users (Barki & Hartwick, 1994) rather than a set of activities or operations users perform (user participation) in the system development process. This investigation views user involvement as a set of activities or operations users perform in different stages of systems development, the most commonly adopted view in prior IS empirical studies (e.g., Olson & Ives, 1981; Franz & Robey, 1986; Tait & Vessey, 1988; Gyampah & White, 1993; Torkzadeh & Doll, 1994).

User involvement is broadly accepted as one of the essential activities in the system development lifecycle (Gyampah & White, 1993), and participation may lead to user acceptance of the system (Torkzadeh & Doll, 1994). Models of user involvement and its impact on systems effectiveness hypothesize that user involvement leads to an increase in both user satisfaction and system usage (Baroudi, Olson & Ives, 1986). Presumably, involvement will help users develop better tailoring to their specific needs, therefore becoming more inclined to use the system, resulting in higher satisfaction with it.

However, the empirical evidence does not consistently support these general normative arguments (Franz & Robey, 1986). While a number of studies reported a significant positive relationship between user involvement and user information satisfaction (e.g., Robey & Rodriguez-Diaz; Gallagher, 1974; Maish, 1979; Swanson, 1974), others found only mixed evidence (e.g., Edstrom, 1977; Power & Dickson, 1973). Baroudi, Olson, and Ives (1986), in their review of studies on the effect of user involvement on system effectiveness, reported six studies investigating the link between user involvement and system usage. Three studies found no relationship, and three found mixed support. They reported also that the evidence is mixed regarding the relationship between user involvement and user information satisfaction.

On the other hand, lack of user involvement in systems development was found to be a major reason for user resistance in an Indian setting (Madon, 1992), and to be a reason for the unsuccessful implementation of a computer application in a multinational company in a Latin American country (Roby et al., 1990). Also, low top management involvement in systems development projects is reported as a barrier to systems diffusion in Arab Gulf Countries (Abdul-Gader, 1999, p. 66).

In an Egyptian culture where there is a tendency to centralization and autocratic leadership, a participative systems development approach such as has been practiced in the Western organizations may not be desirable. Users tend to expect an authoritative management style from project developers (Kassem & Habib, 1989, p. 18). Users may even view systems developers' quest for users participation as signs of weakness. However, when asked by their authoritative senior managers to participate in systems development, users are expected to take participation seriously and get involved. Further research is needed to test the validity of involving users in systems development in such a culture (Abdul-Gader, 1999, p. 148).

The inconsistent empirical evidence available from Western settings and the inconclusive evidence available from developing countries on user involvement and systems effectiveness (e.g., Khalil & Elkordy, 1999, 1997) call for further investigation of the relationship between user involvement and systems effectiveness. Also, Taylor and Todd (1995) and Igbaria et al. (1997) recommended the inclusion of user involvement in future IT use models. Therefore, the relationship between user involvement and system effectiveness was investigated by testing the following two hypotheses:

H3: The higher the level of user involvement, the higher the level of user information satisfaction.

H4: The higher the level of user involvement, the higher the level of system use in improving decision making.

IS Maturity

IS maturity refers to the overall status of the IS function within its growth process (Li, Rogers & Chang, 1994). Since the IS function in an organization determines the strategies, policies, and technologies that basically condition the use of systems, one assumes that greater systems effectiveness will result from increasing the maturity of the IS function (Raymond, 1990; Mahmood & Backer, 1985). Historically, early discussion of IS maturity came from Nolan (1973, 1979), who proposed a stage model of the assimilation of IT in organizations (e.g., Hallady, 1981, p. 31–32).

A number of investigations attempted to validate the stage model as a predictor of the level of IS maturity in a particular organization (e.g., Benbasat et al., 1984; Drury, 1983; Goldstein & McCririck, 1981; King & Kraemer, 1984; Lucas & Sutton, 1977). The findings of such investigations have led to some doubt about the validity of the stage hypothesis as an explanatory construct for the growth of computing in organizations. However, the available evidence does not entirely reject the stage hypothesis, due to the criticism that researchers have failed to properly operationalize the stage model. This issue was addressed by Li, Rogers and Chang (1994), who developed and tested an instrument that reliably and validly measures IS sophistication.

A few investigations, however, adopted the stage model and tested hypotheses that correlated IS maturity to systems effectiveness measures (e.g., Grover & Teng, 1992; King & Sabherwal, 1992; Raymond, 1990; Mahmood & Becker, 1985; Benbasat, Dexter, & Mantha, 1980; Cheney & Dickson, 1982). Since IS maturity is not a static concept in a young and dynamic field such as IS, researchers are expected to continue operationalizing the IS maturity construct and test its relationship to systems effectiveness. This is particularly important to the developing countries where IT diffusion lags and the adoption processes are more problematic, as compared to developed countries.

Empirical evidence from developing countries such as the Arab Gulf Countries suggests that lack of appropriate IS planning, low top management involvement in IS projects, problems with formal budgeting process, insufficient IS management skills and experience, insufficient IT knowledge among top and middle management, and weak relationship between top management and IS management are important barriers to IT diffusion and systems use in these countries (Abdul-Gader, 1999, p. 84). The existence of these characteristics can also be considered a sign of relatively low levels of IS maturity in these countries, given the IS maturity dimensions used in its measuring instruments such as in that of King and Sabherwal (1992). Therefore, one can anticipate higher levels of IS maturity in countries like Egypt to signal less barriers to systems diffusion and to associate with higher levels of systems effectiveness.

Given that only few studies investigated IS maturity and its relationship with systems effectiveness, IS researchers (e.g., Igbaria et al., 1997; Taylor & Todd, 1995; Millet & Mawhinney; 1992) recommended that future studies should consider the influence of IS maturity on the individual use of IT. This investigation expands this line of research into Egypt as a developing country. Generally, IS functions in developing countries, like Egypt, possibly have reached a maturation level that is lower than the maturation level of their counterparts in the developed countries. This is simply because of the disparity in IT sophistication, skilled IT professionals, established IS policies and procedures, and accumulated experience with systems planning and implementations.

The relationship between IS maturity and system effectiveness was investigated by testing the following two hypotheses:

H5: The higher the level of IS maturity, the higher the level of user information satisfaction.

H6: The higher the level of IS maturity, the higher the level of system use in improving decision making.

No a-priori hypotheses were stated for the relationships involving the nine contingency variables in the research model.



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Advanced Topics in Global Information Management (Vol. 3)
Trust in Knowledge Management and Systems in Organizations
ISBN: 1591402204
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 207

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