An analysis of effectiveness factors in published articles on management information systems

MIS articles published during the past 15 years have differed widely in effectiveness of presenting MIS principles. The authors have discussed trends in the literature and have attempted to identify characteristics which can be used to predict classroom effectiveness. Ten hypotheses were formulated to determine the relationships between effectiveness and descriptive characteristics. These hypotheses attempted to identify factors related to effectiveness in explaining fundamental MIS concepts and principles of MIS design, implementation, management and use. The authors analyzed 42 articles using 19 descriptive characteristics and five measures of effectiveness. Statistical tests were performed to determine if the correlations among various factors are significant in explaining the effectiveness of MIS articles. The authors found that specificity in defining MIS was significant in explaining the effectiveness of MIS articles. The importance of organizational aspects and the importance of managerial requirements were verified empirically.