The Relationship of Some Organizational Factors to Information Systems Effectiveness

Abstract

Most of the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of information systems and their determinants is confined to the use of data from Western countries. Evidence from other environments, where the social, economic, and cultural characteristics vary, is needed before generalizations can be made. This paper reports on an investigation designed to explore the relationship of three organizational factors—top management support, user involvement, and the maturity of the IS function—to systems effectiveness in an Egyptian setting. Data was collected from 214 managers, and the results indicate that the three organizational variables positively associate with systems effectiveness, measured by user information satisfaction and system use in improving decision making. Also, user’s tenure in the organization and ownership type were found to affect the relationships between the system’s effectiveness measures and the three organizational variables. These findings are discussed and implications are offered. The findings of this study suggest that the positive relationships of top management support, user involvement, and IS maturity to systems effectiveness may transcend cultural differences. This empirical evidence contributes to the external and international validity of the similar Western-based findings, which, in turn, add to the efforts toward building a general theory of trans-national global information systems (GISs).