Information systems: Similarities and differences across organizations

The importance of the Information Systems (IS) function has steadily increased over the last three decades. During this period, the IS manager's job has changed a great deal. Early on, the emphasis was on technical problems associated with systems development. Now, IS managers are engaged in the development of IS plans, justification and control of IS budgets, exploitation of IS technologies for competitive advantage, etc. A number of empirical studies indicate that the importance of these IS activities varies across organizations. Models dealing with management of the IS function suggest that these differences are due to factors internal to the organization as well as external factors. However, the empirical basis of these models has been questioned. Further, these models either cannot be validated or attempts at validation have failed. This paper presents the results of a field study involving 30 organizations that sought to: (1) determine whether groups of organizations place a similar importance on IS activities, (2) understand how the importance of IS activities varies across organizations, and (3) determine whether the importance of IS activities may be explained by selected situational variables suggested in the literature. It is the first step towards the development of a theory relating situational variables to the key problems managers of information systems technologies must address.