Introduction

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This research examines the different views and perspectives of individuals in an organization towards end-user computing (EUC) and EUC support and how those views can affect end-user satisfaction. End-user satisfaction has long been used as an important surrogate measure of information system success (Zmud, 1979; Doll & Torkzadeh, 1988; DeLone & McLean, 1992; Torkzadeh & Doll, 1993; Buyukkurt & Vass, 1993; Henry & Stone, 1994; Guimaraes & Igbaria, 1994; Mirani & King, 1994; Seddon, 1997; Blili et al., 1998; Foong, 1999; Mahmood et al., 2000; Aladwani, 2002, Shaw et al., 2002). End user satisfaction is a perceptual or subjective measure of system success, serving as a substitute for objective determinants of information systems effectiveness (Ives et al., 1983).

We are interested in how an individual's view or perspective can affect end-user satisfaction. In social cognitive research, views and perspectives, also known as frames of reference, have been used to explain an individual's mental processes. A few studies in the IS area have been conducted to understand the views or attitudes individuals hold towards technology (Bostrom & Heinen, 1977; Dagwell & Weber, 1983; Noble, 1986; Pinch & Bijker, 1987; Kumar & Bjorn-Anderson, 1989; Jawaher & Elango, 2001). The term "technological frame of reference" was introduced by Orlikowski & Gash (1994) to describe the underlying assumptions, expectations, and knowledge that people have about technology.

In the current study, we extend the idea of technological frame of reference to assess the views users hold towards EUC. In particular, we are interested in determining if satisfied and dissatisfied users hold different views of the technology, and, ultimately, if those different views influence their satisfaction with that technology. In particular, we examine the effectiveness of end-user support in an organization, the satisfaction of end users with that support and the technological frames of reference of those users. By concentrating on the differences between satisfied and dissatisfied end users, we hope to deepen our understanding of end user satisfaction and dissatisfaction so as to identify contributory factors that lead to dissatisfaction.

We use a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis in our case study. An instrument measuring end user satisfaction was used to assess the satisfaction of individual users with the overall EUC environment, and service quality gap analysis was used to measure the effectiveness of the support organization in the organization. Grounded theory techniques (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) were used in the qualitative analysis of interviews to assess the frames of reference of selected satisfied and dissatisfied users.



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Advanced Topics in End User Computing (Vol. 3)
Advanced Topics in End User Computing, Vol. 3
ISBN: 1591402573
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 191

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