دانلود رایگان ترجمه مقاله اثر متفاوت تاثیر و مسئولیت کاربر بر فرآیندهای توسعه سیستم اطلاعات و مدیریت پروژه (نشریه الزویر 2011)

اثر متمایز تاثیر کاربر و مسئولیت آن روی فرآیندهای توسعه سیستم اطلاعات و مدیریت پروژه

Discriminative effect of user influence and user responsibility on information system development processes and project management

Abstract

Context User participation in information system (IS) development has received much research attention. However, prior empirical research regarding the effect of user participation on IS success is inconclusive. This might be because previous studies overlook the effect of the particular components of user participation and other possible mediating factors.

Objective The objective of this study is to empirically examine how user influence and user responsibility affect IS project performance. We inspect whether user influence and user responsibility improve the quality of the IS development process and in turn leads to project success, or if they have a direct positive influence on project success.

Method We conducted a survey of 151 IS project managers in order to understand the impact of user influence and user responsibility on IS project performance. Regression analysis was conducted to assess the relationship among user influence, user responsibility, organizational technology learning, project control, user–developer interaction, and IS project management performance.

Results This study shows that user responsibility and user influence have a positive effect on project performance through the promotion of IS development processes as mediators, including organizational technology learning, project control, and user–IS interaction.

Conclusion Our results suggest that user responsibility and user influence respectively play an important role in indirectly and directly impacting project management performance. Results of the analysis imply that organizations and project managers should use both user participation and user influence to improve processes performance, and in turn, increase project success.

1 Introduction

The use of information systems (IS) has become pervasive in organizations in the past two decades. The spread of information systems has provided users with more experience on IS usage, allowing them to form their own opinions and expectations regarding IS development (ISD) projects. As a result, the issue of user participation has received much attention in IS project management research [7,21,27]. User participation refers to the behaviors and activities that the target users or their representative perform in the system development process [6]. Early studies showed no relationship between user participation and ISD performance [46]. However, rapid changes in today’s computer technologies and business strategies have made it increasingly hard to predict and control project goals and system requirements [18]. Today, user participation in ISD typically clarifies system requirements to ensure the achievement of project goals and ultimate success [27].

Advocates of user participation indicate that user participation affects human resource management [52], traditional course of user–IS interaction [27] and the quality of product development processes [15]. User participation had a significant influence on IS success for several years [34]. Barki and Hartwick [6,37] distinguished between user participation and user involvement by referring to the objective practice portion and subjective psychological states, respectively. User involvement refers to a subjective psychological state defining the importance and personal relevance that users attach to IS in general. The distinction enriched empirical evidence for positive effects of user participation on user satisfaction [37]. Nevertheless, previous studies also revealed possible negative effects of user participation, including ambiguous roles, conflicts, requirements creep, and ineffective communication [17,25,31,56]. Thus, the extent to which user participation affects IS success remains elusive [21]. Possible reasons may be which components of user participation are employed and the use of models that are not sufficiently explanatory in system development [34].

An examination of the relationship between user responsibility (or user influence) and project performance might help explain the inconclusive results of the literature on user participation/involvement. User responsibility and user influence are important measures of user participation and user involvement, respectively [22]. User responsibility refers to the assignment and activities reflecting a user’s overall accountability to the success or failure of a project [22]. User influence grants users decision-making authority in system design [37]. Involving users in a project without granting them power and accountability can eventually lead to poor project performance. On the other hand, empowered users can influence the direction of the project for which they are responsible. Users feel psychologically empowered and engaged in the system when they are enable to reconfigure it [48]. This study selects user responsibility and user influence because these two components are commonly adopted, explaining why the results are comparable with previous studies [17,22,31,37]. For ease of exposition, this study adopts the term ‘‘user participation” to refer to the general activities or behaviors of users during system development.

This study empirically examines how user influence and user responsibility affect the performance of ISD projects. We pose the following research questions: Does the practice of user responsibility (or user influence) prompt (or enervate) the quality of ISD processes, and which in turn influences project performance? Does the practice of user responsibility (or user influence) affect project performance only in the presence of established processes? The answers to these questions may allow project managers to plan interventions on involving users in projects to improve project performance.