Conclusions and Implications

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The hypothesized relationships between the organizational variables and systems effectiveness in the research model of the study have been empirically supported. The findings of this study substantiate the existence of relationships between the three organizational variables, namely top management support, user involvement, and IS maturity, and systems effectiveness in Egypt as a developing country.

The evidence provided by this study came from an environment that is socially, economically, and culturally different from the Western environment where most of the prior systems effectiveness research evidence came from. The findings of this investigation suggest that the effects of top management support, user involvement in systems development, and the maturity of the IS function appear to transcend the cultural, social, and economical differences between Egypt and the Western countries. In other words, the three variables investigated in this study appear to be universally relevant to systems effectiveness.

The relevancy of top management support, involvement, and IS maturity to systems effectiveness in Egyptian companies was found to be particularly strong. These findings have implications for global information systems (GIS) theory and practice. They provide some empirical evidence on the external and international validity of the findings of the similar Western-based studies, which, in turn, add to the efforts toward building a general theory of GIS.

Yet, the relative magnitudes of the effects of variables like those investigated in this study may vary in different cultures (e.g., Ein-Dor et al., 1993). Research on GIS that aims at determining the relative importance of top management, involvement, and IS maturity to systems effectiveness in different cultures should be fruitful and add to our understanding of the universality of systems effectiveness determinants. Cross-cultural research will not only substantiate the findings of our study but also will help answer important questions as to whether top management support, user involvement, and IS maturity are equally important in all cultures, the factors that condition the effect of these variables on systems effectiveness in different cultures, and the managerial actions that are likely to induce positive influence of these variables on systems effectiveness.

In addition, our findings suggest that future Egyptian-based research models should include other contingency variables such as financial resources, in an attempt to increase the explained variance in systems effectiveness in Egyptian companies. Egyptian companies, especially in the public sector, have long had financial problems and continue to have difficulties getting financial loans from banks (Hasabou et al., 1993, p. 16). This financial predicament places unnecessary constraints on systems development and implementation efforts and may preclude better information systems solutions.

To further improve the explained variance in systems effectiveness in Egyptian companies, other variables may be added to the research model used in this study (Figure 1) as possible determinants of systems effectiveness, including managers' technological culturation (Straub et al., 2001), user training (Guirmaraes, Igbaria, & Lu, 1992) and the number of administrative applications (Yap, Soh, & Raman, 1992). Technological culturation is the influential experience that Egyptian managers may have had with IT advanced culture as a result of studying, working, or traveling to a technically advanced society. Such a culturation may affect managers' attitudes and beliefs toward IT benefits and adoption (Straub et al., 2001).

Also, formal computer training among Egyptian managers is relatively low, and computer-based applications are mostly transaction processing and inflexible management information systems (Khalil & Elkordy, 1997). Trained managers are expected to have a better attitude towards the systems and to have a higher usage level. Top and middle managers are also expected to have higher levels of satisfaction with systems that address a greater number of their problems.

Since systems use by managers has a positive impact on decision making (e.g., Leidner & Elam, 1994, 1995) and on organizational performance (Leidner, 1996), the results of this investigation provide global and Egyptian IS managers and systems developers with a better understanding of key factors that were found to influence systems effectiveness in Egyptian companies. Systems effectiveness in Egyptian companies can be improved by promoting top management support, improving user involvement, and enhancing IS maturity.

Top managers in developing countries, like Egypt, should play a far more proactive and critical role than in a developed country in order to ensure a smooth and successful systems implementation (Jain, 1995). The top management's leadership role in support of IS in Egyptian organizations is particularly important because of the barriers (e.g., organizational bureaucracy, organizational conflict, limited financial resources, lack of organizational visions, and the weakness of the management systems) surrounding the managerial practices.

The findings highlighted the importance of user involvement to systems effectiveness. Top management in Egyptian companies are required to adopt systems development policies that mandate and encourage appropriate levels of user involvement. It should also provide effective procedures (e.g., simple feedback, user liaison, representative mechanism, consensus mechanism) for users to be involved in the definition, design, and implementation phases of systems. This is important since information systems initiatives in Egyptian public companies are mostly originated at superior levels such as ministers, holding companies, or other external governmental agencies. Users need to get involved in systems development and take the initiative to explain or clarify their information needs, as well as to guide, direct, and lead the process of specifying the input and output requirements for the systems being developed or purchased.

As in other developing countries, lack of knowledge on the potential uses of new IT tools and shortage for highly skilled IT professionals are two concerns for IS management in Egypt. IS functions commonly have a shortage in skilled IS professionals and are improperly positioned in the Egyptian companies. They use centralized rather than decentralized data processing facilities, antiquated rather than up-to-date applications, and batch rather than on-line data entry. Therefore, Egyptian companies must grow beyond the early stages of computing and take advantage of the advanced IT applications. Top management should institute formal systems; promote communications among management, implementers, and users; encourage all user departments to use the existing systems; and provide for stable funding for systems development and operation activities.

In addition, national IT development initiatives are considered critical to successful IT transfer and adoption (Straub et al., 2001). Plans should be adopted and extra resources should be committed in order to grow IS maturity and capability in Egyptian companies. Policies must be formulated to influence those changeable cultural factors (e.g., GNP, national technological infrastructure, IT literacy level, employee morale, and average education level) in order to positively affect systems development and use, and enhance IS maturity in Egyptian organizations.

The Egyptian government has recently adopted a number of IT development initiatives, including increasing awareness of the importance of IT and information for social and economic development, development of skilled IT professionals, enhancing IT infrastructure, deregulation of the telecommunications industry, and the establishment of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT). Soon after, MCIT has started to sponsor programs to attract investments into IT related industries, encourage e-commerce and e-business initiatives, and to establish technology incubators for IT starting businesses. These IT development efforts are likely to directly and indirectly boost the Egyptian companies' capabilities to effectively adopt and utilize IT applications.

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