Effective computer-based information systems operations: a comparative organisational study

McKaskill, Thomas (1978) Effective computer-based information systems operations: a comparative organisational study. Doctoral thesis, University of London: London Business School.

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between the functional staff, who use computer-based information systems, and the data processing staff, who are responsible for designing and managing these systems, in order to identify organisational characteristics, information systems' characteristics and management choice and personal factors, which can be shown to significantly influence the level of systems' effectiveness, as measured by a number of components of user satisfaction. The organisational behavior and information systems literature have been combined with case study work to identify those factors which are likely to be of most influence to the achievement of systems' effectiveness. These factors have been incorporated into a conceptual model which identifies their influence at three levels; namely, the organisational context, the information systems context and the operational level. A comparative organisational study was undertaken, using both questionnaire and interview methods, to collect data on these factors. Questionnaires were completed by 138 functional managers (users) and 21 data processing managers, from 21 medium-to-large U. K. manufacturing companies. Forty-eight of the functional managers and all the data processing managers were subsequently interviewed. The functional managers' questionnaire contained a large number of attitude and opinion questions which were used to generate four user satisfaction components. Three of these, called INTERACTION, SUPPORT and DESIGN, are aspects of the user staff/data processing staff working relationship. The remaining one, IMPACT, is a measure of the user's perceptions of company benefits arising from the use of computer systems. The study findings show that a small number of factors explain the variation in systems' effectiveness. In particular, the factors which were most influential in achieving a high level of user satisfaction related to the nature of the interaction between the two groups and the background of the data processing manager. In addition, a number of managerial practices and techniques advanced in earlier information systems literature were found to have negligible impact on systems' effectiveness.