Directory UMM :Data Elmu:jurnal:I:Information and Management:Vol38.Issue2.Dec2000:
Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
A comparative analysis of critical issues facing Canadian
information systems personnel: a national and
global perspective$
Stephen C. Haynea,*, Carol E. Pollardb,1
a
b
College of Business, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
School 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
$
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: [email protected] (S.C. Hayne),
[email protected] (C.E. Pollard).
1
Tel. 61-3-6226-1792.
corporate resource has increased dramatically. Personal 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 mergers, leveraged buyouts, downsizing, strategic alliances, 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
0378-7206/00/$ ± see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 7 2 0 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 5 6 - 2
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S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
demands on personnel at all levels of IS departments;
these included the provision of timely, high-quality
information and support of innovative products, production 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 regularly been investigated in the United States. These
studies report a changing focus from largely technological issues in the earlier studies [1,7,9] to a greater
focus on management of technology [14] and technology 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 environments 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 correspondingly small population), different political structure, 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 researchers 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 organizational levels.
Speci®cally, we seek to address the following
research questions:
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?
1. What are the 10 most critical managerial and
technical issues IS personnel in Canada perceive
We report on a survey to investigate information
systems issues that are currently facing business
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 managers across Canada. They reported a mix of operational and strategic issues that, when compared with
those of the 1989 US study, showed marked differences 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 technologies, 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 different challenges than their counterparts in the US.
Several key issues studies conducted during a similar time period in countries other than Canada, underlined 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
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
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 tworound, 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 management. 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 ¯exible 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.
75
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 nonrespondents. When necessary, a copy of the questionnaire was faxed to those respondents who had `misplaced' 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 geographic location and industry type is shown in Table 1.
All regions of Canada were represented, 77 respondents 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 Newfoundland, 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 interview data).
3.2. Round 2
3.3. Follow-up interviews
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
Thirty-®ve of the respondents agreed to participate
in follow-up telephone interviews. These interviews
answered the question `why' respondents rated the
issues as they did, reported on individual, managerial
and organizational characteristics that may have
in¯uenced their ratings, and determined sources of
information in¯uencing their perceptions. A semistructured interview guide was developed and re®ned
for completeness and understandability by means
of a pilot test of three IS executives and managers.
Actual interviews lasted from 45 to 90 min and were
conducted by each of the authors over an 8-week
period. With the permission of each respondent, all
76
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
Table 1
Sample by industry type, geographic location and data source
Data source
Survey
Interview
Industry type
Manufacturing
Production
Chemical
Construction
Computer/data process.
Trade: wholesale/retail
Petroleum
8
2
6
10
3
7
2
0
1
2
0
4
Service
Medical/legal services
Transportation services
Utilities
Consulting
Finance
2
6
14
30
12
2
2
2
11
2
Non-profit
Government
Educational
Unclassified
42
4
11
5
1
1
157
35
51
25
9
2
1
3
42
12
12
13
8
1
0
1
1
8
2
1
157
35
68
89
10
25
157
35
33
55
35
34
10
8
7
10
157
35
Total
Province/territory
Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland
Nova Scotia
Ontario
Saskatchewan
Quebec
Total
Business sector
Public
Private
Total
Organizational level
Senior IS executive
IS department manager
Analyst/programmer
Consultants
Total
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 organizational 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 Canadian IS personnel indicated they expect to face in the
next 5 years and compares them with previous Canadian ®ndings. The comparison suggests that the concerns 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 infrastructure' 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 outsourcing'. 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
77
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
Table 2
Top 10 critical IS issues and trends in Canadian IS issuesa
Mean
rating
S.D.
8.14
7.78
7.63
7.51
7.34
7.31
7.28
7.26
7.17
7.07
1.45
1.69
1.55
1.77
1.94
1.84
1.76
2.00
1.66
1.71
Issue classificationa
Issue
Building a responsive IT infrastructure
Improving IS project management practices
Planning and managing communication networks
Improving effectiveness of software development
Aligning the IS organization within the enterprise
Coping with degree and rate of technology change
Developing and implementing information architecture
Using IS for competitive advantage
Facilitating and managing business process redesign
Developing and managing distributed systems
M/T
P/C
I/E
Group
T
M
T
T
M
T
T
M
M
T
C
C
C
C
C
C
P
P
P
C
I
I
E
I
E
E
I
E
E
E
TI
IE
TI
IE
BR
TI
TI
BR
BR
TI
Current Canada 8-year
study
(1988) change
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
15
2
13
4
NEW
NEW
12
ÿ2
NEW
7
NEW
ÿ4
NEW
NEW
a
Issue classification (Niederman et al. [17]); M: management; T: technology; P: planning; C: control; I: internal to IS organization; E:
external; group: business relationship (BR); technology infrastructure (TI); internal effectiveness (IE); or technology application (TA); NEW:
new issue, not mentioned in previous study; Canada (1988): Rivard, Boisvert and Talbot Ð IS managers.
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 communication 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 systems 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 software creation must 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-organizational communication (departments/division) and
expanding inter-organizational communication (suppliers/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 fundamentally 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 encouraging 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 companies ``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
78
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
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 appropriately 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 system''. A manager of IS in a large private transportation
company still acquiring technology, thus unencumbered 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 ITenabled productivity enhancements involve the management 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 manager 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 architecture 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
Apparently, Canadian ®rms are still wrestling with
the use of IT as a competitive factor but less now than
earlier. It also may re¯ect increasing Canadian com-
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
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 differences 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 public 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 redesign 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,
79
``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 alternative are a cause for concern that has not been adequately 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 elaborated 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 concurred:
``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
Table 3 compares the top 10 critical issues by four
organizational levels: IS executive, IS department
80
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
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
Improving IS project management practice
Aligning IS organization w/n enterprise
Coping w/degree and rate of change
Using IS for competitive advantage
1
2
3
4a
4b
8.33*
7.91*
7.70*
7.61
7.61**
1
3
8
7
10
8.42*
7.56*
7.02*
7.05
6.91**
1
2
5b
7
N/R
7.80*
7.71
7.49
7.37
6.66**
3
2
8b
7
1
7.85
8.09
7.38
7.41
8.12*-
Improving effectiveness of S/W development
Planning/managing communication networks
Facilitating/managing BPR
Measuring IS effectiveness and productivity
4c
7
8
9
7.61
7.55
7.36*
7.21**
4
2
9
N/Ra
7.39
7.82
7.00
6.89**
3
5a
N/R
N/R
7.57
7.49
6.83*
6.60**
6
5
4
N/R
7.53
7.56
7.59
6.38*-
*
*
Recruiting/developing IS human resources
Developing/implementing information architecture
Developing/managing distributed systems
Improving IS strategic planning
Facilitating Organization learning
10
N/R
N/R
N/R
N/R
7.15
6.94*
7.09
6.82*
6.60
N/R
5
6
N/R
N/R
6.63
7.27
7.22
6.87
6.42
N/R
4
9
8
10
6.80
7.51*
7.23
7.36*
6.97
10
8a
N/R
N/R
N/R
7.03
7.38
6.65
6.85
6.76
a
N/R: rating does not rank issue in top 10.
Significant at p
A comparative analysis of critical issues facing Canadian
information systems personnel: a national and
global perspective$
Stephen C. Haynea,*, Carol E. Pollardb,1
a
b
College of Business, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
School 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
$
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: [email protected] (S.C. Hayne),
[email protected] (C.E. Pollard).
1
Tel. 61-3-6226-1792.
corporate resource has increased dramatically. Personal 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 mergers, leveraged buyouts, downsizing, strategic alliances, 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
0378-7206/00/$ ± see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 7 2 0 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 5 6 - 2
74
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
demands on personnel at all levels of IS departments;
these included the provision of timely, high-quality
information and support of innovative products, production 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 regularly been investigated in the United States. These
studies report a changing focus from largely technological issues in the earlier studies [1,7,9] to a greater
focus on management of technology [14] and technology 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 environments 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 correspondingly small population), different political structure, 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 researchers 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 organizational levels.
Speci®cally, we seek to address the following
research questions:
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?
1. What are the 10 most critical managerial and
technical issues IS personnel in Canada perceive
We report on a survey to investigate information
systems issues that are currently facing business
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 managers across Canada. They reported a mix of operational and strategic issues that, when compared with
those of the 1989 US study, showed marked differences 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 technologies, 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 different challenges than their counterparts in the US.
Several key issues studies conducted during a similar time period in countries other than Canada, underlined 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
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
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 tworound, 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 management. 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 ¯exible 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.
75
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 nonrespondents. When necessary, a copy of the questionnaire was faxed to those respondents who had `misplaced' 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 geographic location and industry type is shown in Table 1.
All regions of Canada were represented, 77 respondents 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 Newfoundland, 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 interview data).
3.2. Round 2
3.3. Follow-up interviews
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
Thirty-®ve of the respondents agreed to participate
in follow-up telephone interviews. These interviews
answered the question `why' respondents rated the
issues as they did, reported on individual, managerial
and organizational characteristics that may have
in¯uenced their ratings, and determined sources of
information in¯uencing their perceptions. A semistructured interview guide was developed and re®ned
for completeness and understandability by means
of a pilot test of three IS executives and managers.
Actual interviews lasted from 45 to 90 min and were
conducted by each of the authors over an 8-week
period. With the permission of each respondent, all
76
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
Table 1
Sample by industry type, geographic location and data source
Data source
Survey
Interview
Industry type
Manufacturing
Production
Chemical
Construction
Computer/data process.
Trade: wholesale/retail
Petroleum
8
2
6
10
3
7
2
0
1
2
0
4
Service
Medical/legal services
Transportation services
Utilities
Consulting
Finance
2
6
14
30
12
2
2
2
11
2
Non-profit
Government
Educational
Unclassified
42
4
11
5
1
1
157
35
51
25
9
2
1
3
42
12
12
13
8
1
0
1
1
8
2
1
157
35
68
89
10
25
157
35
33
55
35
34
10
8
7
10
157
35
Total
Province/territory
Alberta
British Columbia
Manitoba
New Brunswick
Newfoundland
Nova Scotia
Ontario
Saskatchewan
Quebec
Total
Business sector
Public
Private
Total
Organizational level
Senior IS executive
IS department manager
Analyst/programmer
Consultants
Total
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 organizational 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 Canadian IS personnel indicated they expect to face in the
next 5 years and compares them with previous Canadian ®ndings. The comparison suggests that the concerns 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 infrastructure' 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 outsourcing'. 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
77
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
Table 2
Top 10 critical IS issues and trends in Canadian IS issuesa
Mean
rating
S.D.
8.14
7.78
7.63
7.51
7.34
7.31
7.28
7.26
7.17
7.07
1.45
1.69
1.55
1.77
1.94
1.84
1.76
2.00
1.66
1.71
Issue classificationa
Issue
Building a responsive IT infrastructure
Improving IS project management practices
Planning and managing communication networks
Improving effectiveness of software development
Aligning the IS organization within the enterprise
Coping with degree and rate of technology change
Developing and implementing information architecture
Using IS for competitive advantage
Facilitating and managing business process redesign
Developing and managing distributed systems
M/T
P/C
I/E
Group
T
M
T
T
M
T
T
M
M
T
C
C
C
C
C
C
P
P
P
C
I
I
E
I
E
E
I
E
E
E
TI
IE
TI
IE
BR
TI
TI
BR
BR
TI
Current Canada 8-year
study
(1988) change
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
15
2
13
4
NEW
NEW
12
ÿ2
NEW
7
NEW
ÿ4
NEW
NEW
a
Issue classification (Niederman et al. [17]); M: management; T: technology; P: planning; C: control; I: internal to IS organization; E:
external; group: business relationship (BR); technology infrastructure (TI); internal effectiveness (IE); or technology application (TA); NEW:
new issue, not mentioned in previous study; Canada (1988): Rivard, Boisvert and Talbot Ð IS managers.
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 communication 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 systems 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 software creation must 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-organizational communication (departments/division) and
expanding inter-organizational communication (suppliers/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 fundamentally 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 encouraging 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 companies ``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
78
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
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 appropriately 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 system''. A manager of IS in a large private transportation
company still acquiring technology, thus unencumbered 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 ITenabled productivity enhancements involve the management 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 manager 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 architecture 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
Apparently, Canadian ®rms are still wrestling with
the use of IT as a competitive factor but less now than
earlier. It also may re¯ect increasing Canadian com-
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
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 differences 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 public 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 redesign 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,
79
``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 alternative are a cause for concern that has not been adequately 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 elaborated 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 concurred:
``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
Table 3 compares the top 10 critical issues by four
organizational levels: IS executive, IS department
80
S.C. Hayne, C.E. Pollard / Information & Management 38 (2000) 73±86
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
Improving IS project management practice
Aligning IS organization w/n enterprise
Coping w/degree and rate of change
Using IS for competitive advantage
1
2
3
4a
4b
8.33*
7.91*
7.70*
7.61
7.61**
1
3
8
7
10
8.42*
7.56*
7.02*
7.05
6.91**
1
2
5b
7
N/R
7.80*
7.71
7.49
7.37
6.66**
3
2
8b
7
1
7.85
8.09
7.38
7.41
8.12*-
Improving effectiveness of S/W development
Planning/managing communication networks
Facilitating/managing BPR
Measuring IS effectiveness and productivity
4c
7
8
9
7.61
7.55
7.36*
7.21**
4
2
9
N/Ra
7.39
7.82
7.00
6.89**
3
5a
N/R
N/R
7.57
7.49
6.83*
6.60**
6
5
4
N/R
7.53
7.56
7.59
6.38*-
*
*
Recruiting/developing IS human resources
Developing/implementing information architecture
Developing/managing distributed systems
Improving IS strategic planning
Facilitating Organization learning
10
N/R
N/R
N/R
N/R
7.15
6.94*
7.09
6.82*
6.60
N/R
5
6
N/R
N/R
6.63
7.27
7.22
6.87
6.42
N/R
4
9
8
10
6.80
7.51*
7.23
7.36*
6.97
10
8a
N/R
N/R
N/R
7.03
7.38
6.65
6.85
6.76
a
N/R: rating does not rank issue in top 10.
Significant at p