Regardless of the number of criteria stated, all
authors agreed that requests for maximization of all
named criterions would be without ground and
that the relative meaning of individual criteria
depends on specific situation, in the sense of
identifying relative meaning of information system
successfulness factors, in any described method.
Pearson (1977) has conducted research in practice
and determined that, for groups of interest in the
organization the most important factors are those
presented in table 2.
Table 2 The most important factors for performances
(successfulness) of IS
With detailed result analysis of this empirical
research, it can be noticed that five most important
factors of information system successfulness
mentioned by the information system managers are
mostly consistent with those mentioned by user
manager. However, there are two exceptions:
Factors of relations and communication between
users and information technology specialists have
been rated as more important than the factor of
understanding of user’s needs, while the user
managers have rated the opposite. Factor
“providing training for users” has been pointed by
the user managers as less important than the factor
of output size and the factor of business effects
from computer support, while information system
managers are pointing out the opposite. Attention
should especially be devoted to the fact that the
factor of relation between user and information
system specialist has been rated as the third most
important factor of successfulness by the
information system specialists, and as irrelevant by
the staff of information systems and users, which
points to the possibility of a problem is in the
assessment process of information system
successfulness between the information system
manager and other users connected to the
information system.
Analysis of the factor of dicrepancies in the
information system successfulness between IT
specialists and users, in sense mentioned above,
leads toward several conclusions:
First of all, it has been shown that seven
new factors of information system
successfulness are very important and
should be included in the instrument for
measuring the level of information system
success. Those factors, together with 39
factors listed by Bailey and Pearson, cover
all 8 dimensions of information system
performances.
Second, there are no important differences
between grading importance by information
system managers and information
technologies specialists. The same
conclusion can be drawn from grading
importance by user managers and users.
Also, it has been shown that there are
significant discrepancies between
information system manager and user
manager, but there are significant differences
in importance ratings of information
technology specialists and information
system users.
Third, five most important factors of
information system successfulness pointed
out by information system managers are
almost identical with the ranking of the most
important factors of information system
successfulness according to information
technologies specialists, users and user
managers. The main difference lays in the
factor of capabilities of the top management.
Users see it as the most important factor for
information system successfulness, while
managers think of it as moderately
important. Consequently, top management
must show enthusiasm and support to
information technologies specialists, how
they would use possibilities of information
system for their managerial process. Only
trough that effort can the user be
encouraged to use more functions of
information system. This could, in return,
increase the application of information
system in their everyday work and improve
possibilities for success of information
system.
Fourth, both user managers and information
system managers think that “chargeback”