IT Service Quality Research Articles

From the Editors

Welcome to this second issue of Volume 33. This issue marks the inaugural debut of our technical editor, Gina Green, who has done a marvelous job taking the manuscripts from the point of acceptance to the point of publication. A special thanks is in order for Gina and also for Carrolle Kamperman, who provided Gina some welcome assistance. In addition, Laurie Schatzberg helped make the transition as smooth as possible. Preparing a manuscript for publication is quite an arduous task that requires a keen attention to details. We appreciate the efforts of Gina, Carrolle and Laurie to bring this issue together.We are pleased to include three papers, each one of which offers compelling data on an important IT topic, including IT Evaluation, IT Sourcing, and IT Service Quality. The papers offer an international perspective, with one based upon a survey of IT executives predominantly from the United Kingdom, one based upon a case study of a Canadian firm, and one based upon survey responses from IT users in the United States.The first paper, "Measuring Organizational Effectiveness: An Overview and Update of Senior Management Perspectives," by Seddon, Graeser, and Willcocks, provides a scintillating look at the methods currently used by organizations to evaluate IT projects, to evaluate a specific IT, and to evaluate the IT function. Using responses from senior IT managers in the Europe and the US, the authors examine ten questions related to IT evaluation. This paper should be of interest to both researchers and practitioners. In addition, for those who frequently face such questions from MBA students as "how should an IT application be evaluated?" this paper is a gem. One of the insights of the paper, is that the increased use of outsourcing has led to increased rigor of IT evaluation. This leads us nicely to the second paper in this issue.In "A Resource-Based Analysis of IT Sourcing," Roy and Aubert examine the relationship between the sourcing mode for IS, the value of the resources used in systems development activities, and the presence of the resources within the firm. The authors provide a framework based on the resource-based theory of the firm that helps explain when outsourcing is a desirable option versus when internal governance or partnerships are appropriate. The authors describe the case of Desjardins-Laurentian. The company tried two suppliers, experienced two failures, and eventually settled on internal governance and later, a partnership with a third supplie.The third paper in this issue, "Sources of Dissatisfaction in End-User Support: An Empirical Study" by Shaw, DeLone, and Niederman, explores the end-user support factors that correlate with user satisfaction. A unique aspect of this paper is that it divides end-users into various groups and offers a separate analysis of satisfaction for each group. Measuring service quality as the gap between perceived importance and performance for each support factor, the authors found that service quality gaps and user satisfaction vary across groups. The groups they considered were: faculty, non-IS staff, and students. Knowledge of the inter-relationships among group membership and factors influencing satisfaction can be useful in allocation decisions in the area of end-user support.

Towards mature IT services

Many organizations provide information technology services, either to external or internal customers. They maintain software, operate information systems, manage and maintain workstations, networks or mainframes or provide contingency services. A widely used framework on IT service quality (at least in the Netherlands) is the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), which seeks to publish a standard of service quality and best practices. However, it does not provide organizations with the methodology needed to assess and improve their service processes based on assessments. We propose an Information Technology Service Capability Maturity Model (IT Service CMM) that can be used to assess the maturity of IT service processes and identify directions for improvement. This IT Service CMM originates from our efforts to develop a quality improvement framework that was targeted at helping service organizations to improve service quality. Case studies which introduced parts of our framework into different organizations had mixed results. A service process capability maturity scale, similar to the Software CMM, allowed us to explain many of the differences observed. At the same time, the IT Service CMM suggests ways to improve the service process capability. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Addressing the issues

Describes the approach developed by the authors in using total quality management philosophies and techniques to address the issues and problems arising from IT service provision. Outlines IT service quality issues and discusses MARQUIS (Managing Requirements and Quality in Services), which can be used to specify users′ requirements and develop service products to fulfil these requirements. Provides a Service Code of Practice (SCOP), and suggests that both it and MARQUIS will be of great benefit to the IT industry and its customers in years to come.