A comparative analysis of critical issues facing Canadian
information systems personnel: a national and
global perspective
$
Stephen C. Hayne
a,*, Carol E. Pollard
b,1aCollege of Business, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
bSchool of Information Systems, University of Tasmania, GPO Box 252-87, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Received 13 July 1998; accepted 24 March 1999
Abstract
A survey was conducted of 157 Canadian Information Systems (IS) personnel in organizations throughout Canada using a modi®ed Delphi technique and follow-up interviews to identify the perceived critical issues in IS during the following 5 years. The important issues included: (1) building a responsive IT infrastructure; (2) improving IS project management practices and (3) planning and managing communication networks. Signi®cant differences in the rating of the importance of these issues were reported between IS executives and non-management IS personnel. Qualitative data collected in 35 follow-up interviews provided some interesting insights into the rationale behind the ratings. The top 10 issues were compared to rankings previously reported in Canada and to data collected internationally in a comparable time period. The trend in Canada has been towards technological issues. From a global perspective, Canada currently appears to lead in management issues and lag in technological issues.#2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Critical issues; Key information systems issues; Information systems management; Information technology management; Management priorities
1. Introduction
During the past 20 years, the business environment and the technology embedded within it has seen tremendous change. Information technology (IT) has grown by many orders of magnitude in capacity and speed and the importance of information as a
corporate resource has increased dramatically. Perso-nal productivity and decision-making tools are now accessible to enhance most business functions. New technologies on the horizon promise to enhance the richness of electronic communications and automate the development of even more systems.
This increased capability of IT coincides with changes in the business environment, including mer-gers, leveraged buyouts, downsizing, strategic alli-ances, globalization and commitment to total quality management and empowerment. In the 1990s, aligning Information Systems (IS) with the enterprise and managing processes appeared to by the theme [3]. These environmental changes presented $
The authors contributed equally to the design and execution of this research project and paper.
*Corresponding author. Fax:1-602-543-6256. E-mail addresses: hayne@acm.org (S.C. Hayne), carol.pollard@utas.edu.au (C.E. Pollard).
1Tel.61-3-6226-1792.
demands on personnel at all levels of IS departments; these included the provision of timely, high-quality information and support of innovative products, pro-duction techniques and organizational designs. IS executives are particularly challenged, because they operate at the intersection of IT and the organization. In the face of rapid change, IS executives must be able to interpret trends in IT and assess the impacts on their organization while managing day-to-day operations.
Issues associated with IS management have regu-larly been investigated in the United States. These studies report a changing focus from largely techno-logical issues in the earlier studies [1,7,9] to a greater focus on management of technology [14] and tech-nology infrastructure issues [2]. Similar investigations have been conducted in other countries, e.g. Australia [19], China [16,17], Hong Kong [12], Germany [11], Slovenia [4] and Taiwan [20].
Global ®rms can no longer afford to view there is function within the context of national and regional boundaries. IS issues appear to depend on the political, legal, economic, cultural and technological environ-ments that exist in the foreign country under study [5]. The scope of our study expands on that of prior studies in two ways. First, we compare Canadian issues to those previously reported. Canada has a unique set of circumstances when compared to other countries; a very large geographical size (with corre-spondingly small population), different political struc-ture, distinct regulation of telecommunications, disparate trade agreements, and a distinct culture. Second, very little work has been done to examine whether a shared vision of critical IS issues exists at different levels of the organization. Previous research-ers admit that their survey results cannot be claimed as representative of the IS population in general as their data collection was usually limited to IS executives. We continue the move toward collecting data at various levels of IS personnel to examine whether the `vision' of top IS executives is correlated to the perspectives of IS professionals at other organiza-tional levels.
Speci®cally, we seek to address the following research questions:
1. What are the 10 most critical managerial and technical issues IS personnel in Canada perceive
they will face over the next 5 years? What is the order of importance of these issues?
2. How much agreement is there among the different levels of IS personnel on the key issues and their importance?
3. How do the 10 top Canadian critical issues compare with data collected in international studies during a similar time period?
2. Previous research
A previous Canadian IS issues study reported some interesting ®ndings and clearly demonstrated the need to collect data in Canada, rather than consider that collected in the US as representative of the IT industry in Canada. Rivard et al. [15] surveyed 188 IS man-agers across Canada. They reported a mix of opera-tional and strategic issues that, when compared with those of the 1989 US study, showed marked differ-ences in both content and prioritization. The US and Canadian lists agreed on the prioritization of only the top two issues: IS planning and competitive use of IT. Of the remaining issues, eight on the Canadian list (i.e. training users, communication with users, managing microcomputers, user participation in IS development, control of IS budget, implementation of new technol-ogies, user friendliness of communications software and software costs too high) had not been previously mentioned in any of the US studies. The prioritization of the remaining issues differed considerably. This data suggested that Canadian IS personnel face dif-ferent challenges than their counterparts in the US.
Several key issues studies conducted during a simi-lar time period in countries other than Canada, under-lined these national differences. Since culture can play a large role in the overall ranking of key issues [18], a comparison of the data collected in several countries is insightful. Similarities and differences between the data currently collected and a number of international studies conducted during a similar time frame will be explored in the results section of this paper.
3. Methodology
management in Canada. Our study began with the list of 23 issues in IS management and their supporting rational, as developed by Niederman et al. A two-round, modi®ed Delphi method was employed in order to move the respondents to a level of consensus about the critical issues they were facing in IS man-agement. Although previous studies have used three rounds, negligible differences were shown between second and third round questionnaires in the prior Niederman et al. study. This is consistent with the premise that the number of rounds is somewhat ¯ex-ible and the Delphi process stops when a reasonable level of consensus is achieved [6].
3.1. Round 1
In September 1995, our survey was mailed to a total of 920 people listed in the National Membership Directory of the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) and the Canadian membership listing of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA). Respondents were randomly selected from the directories by Province and wherever possible by `job Category'. In keeping with the policy of Canadian ®rms to use English as its language of business, all questionnaires were in English.
Prior to its mailing, the survey was pre-tested for clarity and ease of understanding by 10 IS personnel, at various levels, in the IS department at a Western Canadian university. No changes were necessary.
3.2. Round 2
Four issues with low ratings (Round 1) were dropped. Five new ones were added, resulting in a total of 24 issues. The new issues were developed from suggestions of Round 1 respondents; all new issues proposed by three or more respondents were included. Round 1 issues were listed in rank order of importance from highest to lowest. A copy of the Round 2 questionnaire is attached as Appendix A.
In late February 1996, all Round 1 respondents were sent feedback of Round 1 results, including their individual responses to use as a baseline comparison. In addition, to increase the response rate, a Round 2 survey was also mailed to a random selection of 536 non-respondents. In total, 712 Round 2 surveys were
mailed. Respondents were once again asked to rate all issues on a 10-point scale. Despite the `clean-up' of the original mailing list, based on the returned surveys from Round 1, 59 Round 2 questionnaires were returned as `undeliverable'. The Round 2 mailing initially resulted in the receipt of 130 useable responses.
Approximately 3 weeks after the second mailing, in an effort to boost the response rate, follow-up phone calls were made to a random selection of 100 non-respondents. When necessary, a copy of the question-naire was faxed to those respondents who had `mis-placed' the survey and respondents faxed completed questionnaires back to the researchers. The follow-up phone calls resulted in the receipt of 26 additional surveys. In total, 157 useable Round 2 questionnaires were received by March 1996, giving an effective response rate of 22%.
The distribution of the survey respondents by geo-graphic location and industry type is shown in Table 1. All regions of Canada were represented, 77 respon-dents represented the Western provinces of Alberta and British Columbia (48%), 21 were from the Central provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba (13%) and 62 represented the Eastern provinces of Newfound-land, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec (39%). It should be noted, that, given the higher population base of the Eastern provinces, the Western and Central provinces might be somewhat over represented (the authors were based in Western Canada and therefore found it easier to gather inter-view data).
3.3. Follow-up interviews
interviews were tape recorded and transcribed in their entirety. After transcription and analysis, interviewees were contacted to check and con®rm their transcript contents.
Respondents interviewed were similarly distributed across geographic region and industry. Twenty-®ve of those interviewed worked in private companies and 10 for public entities. They represented multiple organi-zational levels: 10 IS executives; eight IS managers; seven programmer/analysts and 10 IS consultants.
4. Findings
4.1. Top 10 critical issues Ð trends in Canadian IS issues
Table 2 lists the 10 most critical issues that Cana-dian IS personnel indicated they expect to face in the next 5 years and compares them with previous Cana-dian ®ndings. The comparison suggests that the con-cerns of Canadian IS personnel have changed during the past 10 years. Six new issues have emerged. In addition, prioritization of the issues is signi®cantly different.
Looking beyond the quantitative data, the interview data provide some interesting insights into each of the current top 10 critical issues.
4.1.1. Building a responsive IT infrastructure
This is made more dif®cult by the continuous change of IT and the increasing breadth and depth of applications that need to be supported. The majority of those interviewed were quick to emphasize the importance of expanding the de®nition of `IT infra-structure' to include the `people component', rather than focusing on processor power, connectivity, and applications software. This perspective is explained by a CIO who said, ``the people side of IT is, by far, the biggest component of this issue''. This indicates a shift from the traditional technical view of IT infrastructure.
One IS executive suggested that responsiveness should be measured by the `usability of the end product rather than on its technical capabilities'. To others, this issue also included a `data component' and embodied `an ever increasing trend towards outsour-cing'. We were told that the main dif®culty is in dealing with this issue was the need `to do more and more with less and less'. A director of MIS of a large Western Canada municipality stressed the need to involve top management, ``we have to come together so that we . . .realize the capabilities of IT
Table 1
Sample by industry type, geographic location and data source Data source
Survey Interview
Industry type
Manufacturing
Production 8 2
Chemical 2 0
Construction 6 1 Computer/data process. 10 2 Trade: wholesale/retail 3 0
Petroleum 7 4
Service
Medical/legal services 2 2 Transportation services 6 2
Utilities 14 2
Consulting 30 11
Finance 12 2
Non-profit
Government 42 5
Educational 4 1
Unclassified 11 1
Total 157 35
Province/territory
Alberta 51 13
British Columbia 25 8
Manitoba 9 1
New Brunswick 2 0
Newfoundland 1 1
Nova Scotia 3 1
Ontario 42 8
Saskatchewan 12 2
Quebec 12 1
Total 157 35
Business sector
Public 68 10
Private 89 25
Total 157 35
Organizational level
Senior IS executive 33 10 IS department manager 55 8 Analyst/programmer 35 7 Consultants 34 10
and how it can be deployed. It is important to insure that people know what kinds of applications can be built and how they can be of value to the company''.
4.1.2. Improving IS project management practices
IT is an increasingly important resource that must be managed well. Respondents agreed that project management is more critical than the software itself. A senior business planner in a large government agency saw this issue as a ``point of failure. . .it's very close to customer satisfaction''. He stressed the need for ``tight management of projects and good commu-nication with the client''. Although business has been dealing with this issue for a number of years, the growing scale and complexity of IT projects is of increasing concern. The general consensus for those interviewed was that well-trained, highly specialized, multi-disciplinary teams must be used to deliver sys-tems on time and within budget.
Based on our interviews, we believe that ®rms are beginning to realize that competitive advantage can only be realized by custom software; strategic soft-ware creationmust be well managed.
4.1.3. Planning and managing communications networks
Stand-alone workstations are no longer feasible in today's team-oriented workplace, the network PC, and fast-changing network stands in¯uence this issue. For
many of those interviewed, this issue is expected to continue to gain in importance. Respondents speak of wide geographic dispersion, increasing intra-organi-zational communication (departments/division) and expanding inter-organizational communication (sup-pliers/customers/vendors). A database administrator in a medium-sized manufacturing company sees a ``very sharp shift towards client-server applications
. . .the backbone of your network is the most funda-mentally important thing to consider in setting up these types of systems''.
We concur with Moschella [13]. We have truly entered the `network' era. Supporting and encoura-ging interconnection between entities through social and data network is becoming a strategic necessity.
4.1.4. Improving the effectiveness of software development
Companies have long wrestled with the application development backlog. In comparing current ®ndings with Rivard et al., it would appear that Canadian IS personnel are improving in that respect, since this factor has dropped from second place.
Respondents speak of the dif®culty in changing the status quo. A senior consultant in a large software consulting ®rm explained that he shows other com-panies ``new techniques and better ways to do it and have code walk-throughs, but they are still reluctant to change any of it''. A CIO of a large international
Table 2
Top 10 critical IS issues and trends in Canadian IS issuesa
Mean rating
S.D. Issue Issue classificationa Current
study
Canada (1988)
8-year change M/T P/C I/E Group
8.14 1.45 Building a responsive IT infrastructure T C I TI 1 NEW 7.78 1.69 Improving IS project management practices M C I IE 2 NEW 7.63 1.55 Planning and managing communication networks T C E TI 3 15 12 7.51 1.77 Improving effectiveness of software development T C I IE 4 2 ÿ2 7.34 1.94 Aligning the IS organization within the enterprise M C E BR 5 NEW 7.31 1.84 Coping with degree and rate of technology change T C E TI 6 13 7 7.28 1.76 Developing and implementing information architecture T P I TI 7 NEW 7.26 2.00 Using IS for competitive advantage M P E BR 8 4 ÿ4 7.17 1.66 Facilitating and managing business process redesign M P E BR 9 NEW 7.07 1.71 Developing and managing distributed systems T C E TI 10 NEW
aIssue classification (Niederman et al. [17]); M: management; T: technology; P: planning; C: control; I: internal to IS organization; E:
service company speaks of ®nding the `people side' to be most troublesome, as caused by the ``big paradigm shift for developers. . .object technology is a whole different way of thinking about the problem and analyzing the problem in terms of objects''. A systems analyst at a large public transit company summarized as follows:
``We have a really mixed bag of development tools at the moment. We go everywhere from COBOL and FORTRAN all the way up to 4GL's such as PowerHouse and FoxPro. So we are trying to support too many different types of applications and too many different languages.'' Clearly, the need for diverse talents, a steep learning curve and business requirements to move quickly compound the dif®culties. Software quality is well recognized by most as being important.
4.1.5. Aligning the IS organization within the enterprise
The IS organization's effectiveness in supporting the business needs is dependent on its location within the business. Too often, the IS division is not appro-priately located. The relative important of this issue suggests that IS personnel recognize the need to view IT as an integral part of the business strategy, but that it is still not appropriately addressed by upper management.
The CEO of a medium-sized consulting ®rm observes, ``the traditional, centralized IS bureaucracy is still fairly common in larger organizations and it creates a great deal of political in®ghting and power struggles''. A Director of IT services for a large private oil and gas company felt that his company has dealt with this issue. However, he perceived its importance when he attended a recent conference and was ``astounded by level of struggling that is going to align oneself with the business unit''. The general consensus was that there is a growing trend toward educating user representatives but a lack of senior technical people who understand business. This becomes even more dif®cult in large companies that are often a conglomerate.
4.1.6. Coping with the degree and rate of technology change
This issue has grown signi®cantly in importance from 13th. Given the continued high degree of
tech-nology change in the next few years, major purchases of hardware and operating systems that do not ®t into the plan could be particularly disastrous to ®rms that are heavily contained by limited resources.
The majority of those interviewed indicate that their companies are on the `leading edge' of technology. Given the vendor-driven, rapid change in technology, sometimes the best organizational choice is NOT to change rapidly. A business planner in a large private organization suggested, ``you do have to (change) to a certain extent, but you can lessen it a great deal being a little slower and focus more on what the customer wants, while not always getting them the latest sys-tem''. A manager of IS in a large private transportation company still acquiring technology, thus unencum-bered by legacy systems, feels that his ``ability to cope with technology change is not as acute as some organizations who have a large number of legacy systems''. It appears that many of the barriers to IT-enabled productivity enhancements involve the man-agement of people response to technological change. We must develop strategies to handle the continuing onset of technological change.
4.1.7. Developing and implementing an information architecture
Some of those interviewed put an emphasis on the technology while others emphasized the information component of the architecture. For example, a man-ager of IS who is currently acquiring technology saw this issue as the `foundation for moving forward' that will alleviate other problems with closely-related issues [1,5,6]. Another IS manager saw it as `part of the overall technology infrastructure'. Others focused on the need to develop an information archi-tecture that has standards for classifying and naming data elements. An analyst at a large public hospital expressed concern with an ``information architecture that is so fragmented that I can ask ®ve people how many admissions we had last month and get ®ve different answers because they all de®ne `admissions' in different ways''.
4.1.8. Using information systems for competitive advantage
com-petency with a realization that applying IT does not guarantee success. A corporate strategy that leverages IT must also exist. For example, an external consultant said:
``I don't think it is as important . . . To be as much at the leading edge as the business is at the leading edge of the business.. . .take insurance for example, it's probably more effective for insurance to be better at detecting fraud than at leveraging IS . . . the IS department . . . may contribute in terms of being able to provide information they need.. . .It might be an enabler in the organization or we might be able to provide some enabling technology like analysis of satellite imagery to look at hail damage. . .to make sure that people are not over-claiming for damages''.
Interview data revealed mixed feelings; the differ-ences appeared to be attributable to type of industry and sector. For example, respondents from private ®rms recognized that failures can occur when needed information is unavailable, while those from the pub-lic sector said that they are in an information rich environment where much of their effort could be automated and thus pass information more rapidly.
4.1.9. Facilitating and managing business process reengineering
It plays an increasingly important role in the process of business change by enabling the innovative rede-sign of core business processes [8]. An interview with a senior IS manager indicated that this is an emerging issue that may be important in the future:
``I think (this issue) will be (rated) higher over the next 2 years. . .The next generation that will have an impact will be some of the electronic work flow tools that allow people to work differently . . . I believe, but the users need to go through some maturing. (then) we will need to. . . rethink how we do business.''
Further support for this view was provided by the CIO of a publicly held Western Canadian oil and gas company: ``I think (BPR) will be (rated) higher. . . (with) the further maturity of. . .structured electronic work¯ow tools''.
There was also evidence that IS personnel are resisting the change process. A project manager in a small systems integration ®rm revealed that,
``as far as the BPR goes . . . we are not very successful. . .because we are not managing the change process within the organization. . .it is the politically correct thing to do. . .It is a tough area and I still don't think we do it very well and I don't think we will.''
4.1.10. Developing and managing distributed systems
The challenges associated with the promise of client-server applications as a cost-effective alterna-tive are a cause for concern that has not been ade-quately addressed. The owner-operator of a small systems development R & D ®rm emphasized the importance of developing systems to `mirror the form and function of the organization'. He further elabo-rated his concerns as follows:
``Businesses of the 21st century are the ones that are going to recognize that they are mediators of information, whether they encode it in products, services or some hybrid combination. What's really the issue is `how do I run a business effectively by trading on information'.. . .I have to organize my organization-gathering feedback processes to match the topology of my business. So, if I'm geographically or product line disperse,
. . .I have to build an organization of distributed information processing systems that parallel the physical flow of goods and services.''
A senior business planner in a large government organization expressed similar thoughts: ``I think (developing and managing distributed systems) is the future (of IT). It is an enabler and allows faster delivery of information''.
The CEO of an IS-related service provided con-curred:
``The time has come where information is being distributed more to the end user and more to middle management locally. They are not all bound to the big central mainframe anymore and they have their own local resources so that, in the case of a network failure, they are able to keep working.''
4.2. Analysis by organizational level
manager, systems analyst/programmer and consultant. Of these, one might expect IS managers and systems analysts/programmers to have an internal orientation, whereas IS executives might have an external orienta-tion. We had no a priori expectations of the focus of consultants. There appears to be agreement among corporate IS personnel that `building a responsive IS infrastructure' is most important. In contrast, consul-tants view `using IS for competitive advantage' as the single-most critical issue; interview data showed that most consultants are engaged in convincing manage-ment to apply technology strategically and push the envelope on strategy.
Internally, signi®cant differences (p<0.05) were reported between IS executive and lower level IS personnel on four issues. IS executives placed more importance on `building a responsive IT infrastruc-ture', and `facilitating and managing business process reengineering'. Systems analysts and programmers felt that dealing with `developing and implementing information architecture' and `improving IS strategic planning' was more critical than did IS executives. For
example, interview data showed that IS executives were more focused on cost control, while lower level IS personnel focused on the interaction of technology components with business tasks.
It is interesting to note that `developing and implementing information architecture' was of the highest importance to US IS executives but was rated 12th in the current study and was not mentioned by Canadian IS personnel in earlier studies. Similarly, `improving IS project management practice' and `aligning the IS organization within the enterprise' is signi®cantly more important (p<0.05) to IS execu-tives than IS managers, who had dif®culty in dealing with planning and managing communication net-works.
Signi®cant differences (p<0.01) were evident on the issue of `measuring IS effectiveness and productivity'. Of course, IS executives are more concerned with business, while IS managers and analysts/program-mers felt that they had this issue under control. This issue was previously ranked 11th by US respondents, 16th some 7 years ago and 9th in an even earlier study.
Table 3
Comparison of top 10 issues by level
Issue IS executives
(n33)
IS department managers (n55)
System analyst/ programmers (n35)
Consultants (n34) Rank Mean
rating
Rank Mean rating
Rank Mean rating
Rank Mean rating Building responsive IT infrastructure 1 8.33* 1 8.42* 1 7.80* 3 7.85
Improving IS project management practice 2 7.91* 3 7.56* 2 7.71 2 8.09
Aligning IS organization w/n enterprise 3 7.70* 8 7.02* 5b 7.49 8b 7.38
Coping w/degree and rate of change 4a 7.61 7 7.05 7 7.37 7 7.41 Using IS for competitive advantage 4b 7.61** 10 6.91** N/R 6.66** 1 8.12
*-*
Improving effectiveness of S/W development 4c 7.61 4 7.39 3 7.57 6 7.53 Planning/managing communication networks 7 7.55 2 7.82 5a 7.49 5 7.56 Facilitating/managing BPR 8 7.36* 9 7.00 N/R 6.83* 4 7.59 Measuring IS effectiveness and productivity 9 7.21** N/Ra 6.89** N/R 6.60** N/R 6.38
*-*
Recruiting/developing IS human resources 10 7.15 N/R 6.63 N/R 6.80 10 7.03 Developing/implementing information architecture N/R 6.94* 5 7.27 4 7.51* 8a 7.38 Developing/managing distributed systems N/R 7.09 6 7.22 9 7.23 N/R 6.65 Improving IS strategic planning N/R 6.82* N/R 6.87 8 7.36* N/R 6.85 Facilitating Organization learning N/R 6.60 N/R 6.42 10 6.97 N/R 6.76
aN/R: rating does not rank issue in top 10. *Significant atp<0.05.
Since previous studies reported no qualitative data, it is impossible to discern whether this changes shows that IS executives had decided that it was not easily solved and were therefore concentrating on issues that were easier to implement.
Interview data also suggested that signi®cant dif-ferences (p<0.01) were reported across all categories of respondents on the issue of `using IS for compe-titive advantage'. Other than consultants, respondents that that this issue had either abated or delegated to external sources.
4.3. Comparison with previous international findings
Table 4 compares the current results with those of several international studies conducted in a similar time period. `Aligning the IS organization within the Enterprise' was the only issue that appears in the 10 top issues of the current study and all other countries reported. Conversely, `Coping with Degree and Rate of Technology Change' appears only on Canada's top 10 list.
Comparing countries across the top 10 critical issues, Canada is most similar to the US (seven common issues), somewhat similar to Hong Kong
(®ve common issues) and least similar to Slovenia and Taiwan (three common issues).
Applying Niederman's issue classi®cation to Table 3, it shows that Canadian and US IT personnel place a greater emphasis on issues relating to technol-ogy versus management, while Hong Kong, Slovenia and Taiwan listed twice as many management issues than technology. Taiwan stood alone in reporting more planning issues than control; and, Taiwan and Slove-nia listed more issues that were external to the IS organization, rather than internal to IS. On the group dimension, Taiwan's list was heavily focused on business relationships, whereas the US, Canada and Slovenia focused more or less equally on business relationships and technology infrastructure and Hong Kong was equally focused on business relationships and international effectiveness.
Except for the alignment of Slovenia with the US and Canada on the latter dimension, these ®ndings are consistent with the national differences in vari-ables that represent diversity, i.e. power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity [10].
Table 4 also shows some disagreement on prioritization of the issues. For instance, different
Table 4
Comparison of top 10 current Canadian issues with previous international findingsa
Issue name Current
studyb
(n157)
USc(1996)
(n108)
Hong Kongd
(1996) (n108)
Sloveniae
(1996) (n105)
Taiwanf(1996)
(n332) Diff. Rank Diff. Rank Diff. Rank Diff. Rank Building a responsive IT infrastructure 1 0 1 14 15 NR 3 4 Improving IS project management practices 2 NR NR 16 18 20 22 Planning and managing communication networks 3 2 5 4 7 5 8 16 19 Improving effectiveness of software development 4 2 6 ÿ2 2 8 (12, 13) 8 12 Aligning the IS organization within the enterprise 5 4 9 4 9 NR ÿ2 3 Coping with degree and rate of technology change 6 NR NR NR NR Developing and implementing information architecture 7 ÿ3 4 ÿ3 4 0 7 4 11 Using IS for competitive advantage 8 9 17 ÿ5 3 ÿ5 3 ÿ4 4 Facilitating and managing business process redesign 9 ÿ7 2 NR NR 12 21 Developing and managing distributed systems 10 ÿ7 3 4 14 NR NR
aDiff.: difference between previous ranking and current study; NR: issue not ranked in previous studies. bCurrent study (four levels).
cUS (1996): Brancheau, Janz and Wetherbe (three levels). dHong Kong (1996): Moores (IS managers).
perceptions of importance of planning and manag-ing communications networks are evident. Since the Canadian interviews indicate this is an emerg-ing issue, it would appear that the US, Hong Kong and Slovenia join Canada in struggling with planning and managing communication networks. Interestingly, Taiwan does not yet ®nd this issue critical.
These ®ndings are particularly worth noting for companies operating in a global market and rein-force the need to consider different priorities when developing IT strategies when trading in (and with) different countries. These ®ndings also indicate the need to continue to report international ®ndings sepa-rately and caution against regarding US data as the indicator of the status of information technology internationally.
5. Conclusions
Our results suggest that the concerns of Canadian IS personnel are different from those of 10 years ago. In addition, the prioritization of issues is signi®-cantly different. It is also apparent that there are interesting differences between IS executives and lower level IS management. External consultants
appear to play a strategic role, rather than a basic outsourcing role.
Interesting similarities and differences between the current results and those reported in other countries are also evident. The fact that a responsive IT infra-structure is important to many countries is consistent with the need to be ¯exible in today's global business environment. Data would suggest that IS managers the world over, need to pay more attention to software development and technology application. Further-more, developing countries would be well advised to plan for increased telecommunications' infrastruc-tures. Not only are ®rms faced with increasing advances in personal computing technology, but great improvements in networking capability is near. For example, diverse, high bandwidth telecommunica-tions projects will amplify the move to electronic commerce. IS personnel must be ¯exible enough to embrace this. As we more deeply enter the network age, distributed systems and process management will be mission critical.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the chief editor, Dr. E.H. Sibley, for his insightful comments.
References
[1] L. Ball, R. Harris, SMIS members: a membership analysis, Management Information Systems Quarterly 6 (1), 1982, pp. 19±38.
[2] J. Brancheau, J. Wetherbe, Key issues in information systems management, Management Information Systems Quarterly 11 (1), 1987, pp. 23±45.
[3] J. Brancheau, B. Janz, J. Wetherbe, Key issues in information systems management: 1994±95 SIM Delphi results, Manage-ment Information Systems Quarterly 20 (2), 1996, pp. 225± 242.
[4] A. Dekleva, J. Zupancic, Key issues in information systems management: a Delphi study in Slovenia, Information and Management 31 (1), 1996, pp. 1±11.
[5] P. Deans, K. Krwan, M. Goalar, D. Ricks, Identification of key international information systems issues in US-based multinational corporations, Journal of Management Informa-tion Systems 7 (4), 1991, pp. 27±50.
[6] A. Delbecq, A. Van de Ven, D. Gustafson, Group Techniques for Program Planning: A Guide to Nominal Group and Delphi Processes, Scott Foresman, Glenview, IL, 1975.
[7] G. Dickson, J. Leitheiser, J. Wetherbe, M. Nechis, Key information systems issues for the 1980s, Management Information Systems Quarterly 8 (3), 1984, pp. 135±148. [8] M. Hammer, J. Champy, Reengineering the Corporation,
Harper Business Press, New York, 1991.
[9] C. Hartog, M. Herbert, 1985 Opinion survey of MIS managers: key issues, Management Information Systems Quarterly 10 (4), 1986, pp. 351±362.
[10] G. Hofstede, Culture's Consequences: International Differ-ences in Work-Related Values, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA, USA, 1980.
[11] H. Kremer, Informations management Ð zum problem bewusstaein deutscher DV-leiter, Wirtschaftsinformatic 32 (2), 1990, pp. 127±135.
[12] T. Moores, Key issues in the management of information systems: a Hong Kong perspective, Information and Manage-ment 30 (6), 1996, pp. 301±307.
[13] D. Moschella, Waves of Power, American Management Association, New York, 1997.
[14] F. Niederman, J. Brancheau, J. Wetherbe, Information systems issues for the 1990s, Management Information Systems Quarterly 15 (4), 1991, pp. 475±499.
[15] S. Rivard, C. Boisvert, J. Talbot, Key management issues in information systems: a comparative analysis, in: Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the ASAC 1988 Conference, 1988, pp. 32±42.
[16] P. Wang, E. Turban, Management information systems issues of the 1990s in the Republic of China: an industry analysis,
International Journal of Information Management 14 (1), 1994, pp. 25±38.
[17] P. Wang, Information systems management issues in the Republic of China for the 1990s, Information and Manage-ment 26 (6), 1994, pp. 341±352.
[18] R. Watson, J. Brancheau, Key issues in information systems management: an international perspective, Information and Management 20 (3), 1991, pp. 213±223.
[19] R. Watson, Key issues in information systems management: an Australian perspective, Australian Computer Journal 21 (3), 1989, pp. 118±129.
[20] H. Yang, Key information management issues in Taiwan and the US, Information and Management 30 (5), 1996, pp. 251± 267.
Stephen C. Hayneis Associate Profes-sor of IS at Colorado State University. His research interests are in distributed database design, knowledge-based tech-nology and group support systems. Dr. Hayne holds a PhD in MIS from University of Arizona. He has imple-mented tools in graphical environments to assist groups in communication and decision-making and received National Science Foundation funding (US$ 300,000) for examining group decision processes. His articles have appeared in `Journal of Management Information Systems', `Database', `Journal of Systems and Software', `Journal of Computer Supported Colla-borative Work' and `Journal of Information and Technology Management'. Dr. Hayne currently serves as the Chair of SIGGROUP and was General Chair for GROUP'99 conference.
