An Empirical Test of the Contingency Approach to User Participation in Information Systems Development.

Author List: Saleem, Naveed;
Journal of Management Information Systems, 1996, Volume 13, Issue 1, Page 145-166.
User participation in information systems development is considered the key to system success in organizations. The empirical evidence, however, does not support this. A review of the literature suggests that one critical weakness in empirical investigations is inadequacy of operational measures of participation to gauge user influence on system design. Furthermore, there is also a growing consensus that the contradictory evidence may be due to a contingent, rather than a direct, relationship between participation and system success. This conception asserts that the outcome of user participation may depend on various contextual variables. One variable in particular--users' system-related functional expertise--is believed to moderate the outcome of participation. This paper derives the contingent effect of user expertise and reports the results of a controlled laboratory experiment and a field survey conducted to test it. The data suggest that users who perceive themselves as functional experts, relative to others, are unlikely to accept a system unless they exerted a substantive influence on its design. On the other hand, users who perceive themselves as functional nonexperts, relative to others, are likely to accept a system regardless of the extent of their influence on its design. This finding suggests user expertise as a useful criterion for selecting participants to serve on design teams and for determining the appropriate extent of a participant user's influence on system design.
Keywords: design teams; system acceptance; system design; system development; system success; user participation.
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#269 0.156 participation activities different roles projects examined outcomes level benefits conditions key importance isd suggest situations contextual furthermore benefit levels focus
#253 0.142 user involvement development users satisfaction systems relationship specific results successful process attitude participative implementation effective application authors suggested user's contingency
#198 0.134 factors success information critical management implementation study factor successful systems support quality variables related results key model csf importance determinants
#285 0.130 effects effect research data studies empirical information literature different interaction analysis implications findings results important set large provide using paper
#51 0.108 results study research experiment experiments influence implications conducted laboratory field different indicate impact effectiveness future participants evidence test controlled involving
#270 0.076 design designs science principles research designers supporting forms provide designing improving address case little space criteria methods increasing synthesis designer
#174 0.067 use support information effective behaviors work usage examine extent users expertise uses longitudinal focus routine revealed volume constructs contributes operations
#93 0.063 performance results study impact research influence effects data higher efficiency effect significantly findings impacts empirical significant suggest outcomes better positive