Quality And Usefulness, Not User Satisfaction

A study focusing on information systems says that quality and usefulness trump user satisfaction in the quest for success. The findings are the subject of a paper in the Management Insights section of the current issue of Management Science, the flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

Management Insights, a regular feature of the journal, is a digest of important research in business, management, operations research, and management science. It appears in every issue of the monthly journal.

"Information System Success: Individual and Organizational Determinants" is by Rajiv Sabherwal, Anand Jeyaraj, and Charles Chowa of the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Based on empirical research conducted between 1980 and 2004, the study examines four aspects of information systems (IS) success: system quality, perceived usefulness, user satisfaction, and system use. The authors highlight the importance of system quality, which affects all other aspects of IS success. They also observe that system quality and perceived usefulness but, curiously, not user satisfaction, influence the extent to which the system is used.

The study's results suggest that system developers and managers should concentrate on developing better systems rather than focusing on increased user satisfaction with the system.

The analysis also suggests that four long-term measures correlation to information systems are especially important: (1) IS training, (2) improving individuals' attitudes toward information systems, (3) gaining top-management support for information systems, and (4) developing organizational structures that facilitate use of information systems, such as help desks and online user assistance.

The current issue of Management Insights is available at http://mansci.journal.informs.org/current.dtl. The full papers linked to the Insights are available to Management Science subscribers. Individual papers can be purchased at http://institutions.informs.org. Additional issues of Management Insights can be accessed at http://mansci.pubs.informs.org/.

The Insights in the current issue are:

• The Effect of Service Experiences over Time on a Supplier's Retention of Business Customers by Ruth N. Bolton, Katherine N. Lemon, Matthew D. Bramlett
• Impact of Licensing on Investment and Financing of Technology Development by Nalin Kulatilaka, Lihui Lin
• Reconsideration of the Winner-Take-All Hypothesis: Complex Networks and Local Bias by Eocman Lee, Jeho Lee, Jongseok Lee
• Information System Success: Individual and Organizational Determinants by Rajiv Sabherwal, Anand Jeyaraj, Charles Chowa
• Common Method Variance in IS Research: A Comparison of Alternative Approaches and a Reanalysis of Past Research by Naresh K. Malhotra, Sung S. Kim, Ashutosh Patil
• Quality-Based Competition, Profitability, and Variable Costs by Chester Chambers, Panos Kouvelis, John Semple
• Production and Inventory Control of a Single by Product Assemble-to-Order System with Multiple Customer Classes Saif Benjaafar, Mohsen ElHafsi
• Strategic Investments, Trading, and Pricing Under Forecast Updating by Jiri Chod, Nils Rudi
• Efficient Monte Carlo and Quasi-Monte Carlo Option Pricing Under the Variance Gamma Model by Athanassios N. Avramidis, Pierre L'Ecuyer
• A Theory of Volatility Spreads by Gurdip Bakshi, Dilip Madan
• Research Note: Optimal Dynamic Advertising Policy for New Products by Trichy V. Krishnan, Dipak C. Jain

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Posted by: Edwin    Source