THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Delone and McLean (1992) in their landmark paper proposed a causal model for IS
success by factoring success as an integration of system quality, information quality,
user satisfaction, use, individual impact and organizational impact.
According to this model the system quality and information quality affect user satisfaction
and use.
The model also posits use and user satisfaction as interdependent factors in a reciprocal
compact. Moreover, it presumes that the interdependent factors are direct antecedents
of individual impact which, in turn, affects organizational impact. Empirical investigation
was carried out on the model, fully and partially, in various settings and contexts. The
model was further developed with the inputs of Pitt, Watson and Kavan (1995) and
Seddon and Kiew (1994). Recommendations of Pitt et al. (1995) resulted in the
incorporation of service quality as a new dimension. The model underwent fine-tuning
with the comments of Seddon and Kiew (1994) resulted in grouping of individual and
organizational impact into one variable as net benefits and also the use variable now has
two meanings, depending upon its volitional or mandatory use. For Volitional use one
“use” may be used as the construct in the whereas for mandatory use one may use
“intentions to use” as the construct. We shall briefly discuss the IS success constructs
and measures in the forthcoming sections.