1 Department of Information Systems, St. Francis Xavier University, P.O. Box: 168, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2G 2W5.
2 Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110 016, India.
This paper presents empirical findings on relationships between user involvement and flexibility variables in strategic planning of information systems. ‘Flexibility’ has been considered for organization, MIS, and usage. The proposed research model assumes organizational flexibility as a dependent variable, MIS and usage flexibility as intervening variables and user involvement in MIS strategic planning as an independent variable. Hypotheses are formulated based on the proposed research model and are tested empirically by questionnaire survey. The sample size was 296 comprising of users and planners from 42 organizations randomly selected from eight different sectors. The measures for flexibility variables are generated by idea engineering exercise. Scale tables explaining the dimensions of user involvement and flexibility were used to obtain the responses for each questionnaire item. A set of predefined criteria was used to ensure the relevance of the respondents' for this survey.
The univariate results of the research variables are presented for optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic scenarios. The dimension-wise values for user involvement and flexibility variables are given to gain more insight into each of the variable construct. The results of statistical analysis validate the relationship between user involvement and flexibility variables in strategic planning of MIS. Path analysis was carried out to predict organizational flexibility and usage flexibility. The causal explanations are given considering direct and indirect impacts of causal variables.
MIS flexibility, MIS strategic planning, organizational flexibility, user involvement, usage flexibility
