Mo Adam Mahmood

Measuring the organizational impact of information technology investment: an exploratory study

Organizations are investing ever-increasing amounts in information technology (IT). However, the existing literature provides little evidence of a relationship between IT investment and organizational strategic and economic performance. The exploratory research reported here appears to be the first to relate comprehensive sets of IT investment measures to organizational strategic and economic performance measures. Although the individual IT investment variables were found to be only weakly related to organizational strategic and economic performance, they were significantly related to performance when grouped and analyzed by means of canonical correlation. More specifically, canonical results suggest that organizational strategic and economic performance measures such as sales by employee, return on sales, sales by total assets, return on investment, and market to book value are affected by IT investment measures such as IT budget as percentage of revenue, the percentage of IT budget spent on training of employees, number of PCs per employee, and IT value as a percentage of revenue. The organizational performance measure growth in revenue and IT investment measure percentage of IT budget spent on staff were not significantly related to other measures and therefore were not indicated to be useful for investigating possible effects of IT investment on organizational strategic and economic performance. Finally, a model based on these results is suggested. The model depicts a framework for management evaluation of the relationship between IT investment and organizational performance.

Variables affecting information technology end-user satisfaction

The level of end-user satisfaction with information technology (IT) has widely been accepted as an indicator of IT success. The present research synthesizes and validates the construct of IT end-user satisfaction using a meta-analysis. It accomplishes this by analysing the empirical results of 45 end-user satisfaction studies published between 1986 and 1998 and by focusing on relationships between end-user satisfaction and nine variables: perceived usefulness, ease of use, user expectations, user experience, user skills, user involvement in system development, organizational support, perceived attitude of top management toward the project and user attitude toward information systems (IS) in widely divergent settings. The present analysis found positive support for the influence of all nine variables on end-user IT satisfaction but to varying degrees. The most significant relationships were found to be user involvement in systems development, perceived usefulness, user experience, organizational support and user attitude toward the IS. This has implications for IS analysis and design as well as user training and the development of training support packages.

Factors Affecting Information Technology Usage: A Meta-Analysis of the Empirical Literature

With an estimated investment of over 1 trillion dollars to date on information technology (IT) products and applications, one would hope that there exists a corresponding improvement in organizational performance and productivity. The level of IT usage has widely been accepted as an important indicator of IT success within organizations. This research synthesizes and validates the construct of IT usage using a meta-analysis. It accomplishes that by analyzing the empirical results of various studies over a period of time covering a broad scope of characteristics of both users and information systems (IS), and it examines the relation between these characteristics and the level of IT usage within organizations. In general, the results of this meta-analysis lead to the conclusion that there exists a strong and significant positive relation between the perception of ease of use and the perceived usefulness of an IT system to the actual amount of usage. Another factor that indicates a high level of IT usage is the organizational support of IT within an enterprise. Although the factors of education level, training level, and professional level were found to have a substantial effect on IT usage, the magnitude of these effects were lower than those of the perceptions of the user and organizational support. Managers and IT professionals may have a better chance of avoiding IT system ineffectiveness and even failure by paying attention to the results of this research, especially in view of the fact that it synthesized and validated the results of a significant number of empirical studies published in some of the best IS journals. Rarely do single research experiments provide definitive answers on which to base policy decisions.

System development methods—a comparative investigation

This article presents a retrospective comparative study of the use of the system development life cycle (SDLC) and prototyping methods to help select a development approach for a given information systems (IS) project. The respondents were asked (a) to decide independently whether one of their recent IS projects was developed using either the SDLC or prototyping approach and if so, (b) to evaluate the merit of that approach in terms of ease of project management, project requirements, project characteristics, impact on decision making, and user and designer satisfaction. The results indicate:1. Design methods cannot be considered apart from project, environment and decision characteristics.2. A clear cut preference of one method over the other could not be established. Each method performed better in some areas than in others.3. A framework that can be used by a project director for selecting a design method to develop a system could be postulated.

Special issue: impacts of information technology investment on organizational performance

Mo ADAM MAHMOOD is Professor of Computer Information Systems in the Department of Information and Decision Sciences at the University ofTexas at El Paso. He also holds the Ellis and Susan Mayfield Professorship in the College of Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. in management infonnation systems at Texas Tech University. Dr. Mahmoods research interests center on the utilization of information technology including electronic commerce for managerial decision-making and strategic and competitive advantage, group decision support systems, and infonnation systems success as it relates to end user satisfaction and usage. On these and other topics, he has published over 30 technical research papers in some of the leading joumals in the information technology field including Decision Sciences, Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, European Joumal oflnformation Systems, INFOR—Canadian Joumal of Operation Research and Information Processing, Information and Management, Joumal of End User Computing, and Database. He has also published over 35 research manuscripts in leading conference proceedings and has presented papers in a number of regional, national, and intemational conferences. He has recently edited and published a second book, entitled Measuring Information Technology Investment Payoff: Contemporary Approaches. Dr. Mahmood presently serves as President of the Information Resources Management Association and Editor of the Joumal of End User Computing. He has also recendy completed his two one-year terms as President of the Faculty Senate at the University of Texas at El Paso. In 1997, Govemor George W. Bush appointed him to a Texas State Board.

Impact of information technology investment: An empirical assessment

Abstract Assessing the impact of information technology (IT) investment on organizational performance has been found to be problematic. Past studies of relationships between information technology investment and organizational performance has generally produced mixed, inconclusive, and even confusing results. The research described here attempts to demonstrate the impact of IT investment by investigating relationships between sets of IT investment measures and organizational performance measures. The results reveal positive and significant relationships between certain of the IT investment measures and organizational performance measures used in the study, indicating that organizations with greater levels of IT investment also had higher performance, as measured by return on investment, return on sales, sales per employee, sales by total assets, and market value to book value.

Evaluating organizational efficiency resulting from information technology investment: an application of data envelopment analysis

Abstract. Even during this recessionary era, information technology (IT) expenditure in most organizations continues to grow at a high rate. Because of this increased IT expenditure, more and more senior managers are demanding that IT play a greater role in determining their firms success by helping them increase organizational efficiencies and perhaps even achieve competitive advantage. The existing information systems literature on IT investment and organizational strategic performance, however, provides very little help to senior managers in making before‐the‐fact IT investment decisions. The present research study puts forth some ‘hard’ evidence relating IT investment to organizational strategic and economic performance by using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Eight IT investment measures were used as inputs and 10 organizational strategic and economic performance ratios were used as outputs for the DEA model. The results indicate that two‐thirds of the organizations in this research study are deemed efficient by DEA. A clear distinction exists between the efficient group and the inefficient group in terms of IT investment and organizational strategic and economic performance. The firms in the efficient group had a much higher return on their information technology investment than the inefficient group. In addition, the DEA results pinpoint the inefficient inputs and deficient outputs for an inefficient firm allowing a senior manager to take corrective actions to compensate for the situation.

Effect of the quality of user documentation on user satisfaction with information systems

Abstract User documentation plays an important role in implementation success of an information system through its user satisfaction. Yet, very little rigorous research has been undertaken in relating user satisfaction to user documentation. This article first re-validates two existing user documentation and user satisfaction instruments. This is followed by a rigorous attempt to determine the effect of user documentation on user satisfaction, using a canonical correlation analysis. The results indicate that user satisfaction of a system is strongly influenced by its documentation. The research provides a set of guidelines, arrived at empirically, for IS managers to ensure the design of highly efficient and effective user documentation for a system, by monitoring and controlling the entire process of documentation. These guidelines can also be used to identify and rectify a poorly documented system by using a set of user satisfaction criteria.

An application of artificial neural networks in evaluating business ethics: an exploratory study

Stimulated by the proliferation of a number of scandalous incidents, concerns about business ethics have increased significantly over the last decade. As such, research studies have focused on developing theoretical and empirical foundations for understanding ethical decision making. Empirical studies have, however, used traditional quantitative analytic tools such as regression or discriminant analysis to investigate ethical issues. With the increased emphasis on ethics in organizations, more advanced tools are needed. In this exploratory research, a new approach to classifying, categorizing and analyzing ethical decision situations is presented. A comparative performance analysis of artificial neural networks, MDA and the chance approach indicated that artificial neural networks are better predictors in both training and testing phases. While some limitations of this approach were noted, in the field of business ethics, these networks possess considerable potential as an alternative to traditional analytic tools like MDA.<<ETX>>

Developing a prototype job evaluation expert system: a compensation management application

Compensation is a complex issue with broad ramifications for both employer and employee. The pivotal point in the establishment of a compensation system is job evaluation. An expert system, a rapidly emerging decision making technology, is applied to the job evaluation area. Various approaches to job evaluation are discussed. Recently published computer-assisted methods for job evaluation are reviewed. The complete process of designing and developing a Job Evaluation Expert System (JEES) and its limitations are discussed. Benefits offered by JEES are identified and future research opportunities are highlighted.