Given that DMS is a web-based inter-organizational information system; this section incorporates the contributions of web-based (WB) and IOS studies of effectiveness evaluation. Reviewing the literature underscored that the majority of WB and IOS researchers argued that the emergence of the Internet and the radical changes in the global marketplace challenge the use of traditional IS effectiveness measures as indicators of the effectiveness of WBIOS. Researchers asserted that WBIS are considerably different from the traditional IS in terms of their scope and focus (Zwass 1996; Garrity et al. 2005). The most distinctive feature of WBIOSs is that they involve many parties being linked up for the purpose of conducting their business activities based on web technologies (Lu et al. 2006), and sharing infrastructure and
78 communication protocols of Internet or Intranets (Zwass 1996). According to Garrity et al. (2005), WBISs are:
“Usually built to facilitate consumer oriented tasks and focus on enhancing the consumer decision making process. As the Web environment is characterized as non-linear in nature, presentation and delivery of information and frictionless work support are very critical for attracting consumers and enhancing the shopping experience” (2005, p.
2).
Such views of WBIOS researchers imply that issues related to partnerships, communication, management, Internet technologies, and being customer-oriented are likely to feature prominently when evaluating the effectiveness of such systems.
Additionally, Lu et al. (2006) advocated that factors of traditional IS effectiveness studies are applicable to IOS, since it is a sort of IS, however, IOS are more complex and multifaceted than the traditional information systems in terms of their technological and management related issues. Therefore, WBIOS may have its own factors of effectiveness besides those of general IS. In this sense, researchers increasingly argued that these unique characteristics of WBIOS may require new metrics (Patel 2000; Lu et al. 2006), or at least careful evaluation of the existing ones (Straub et al. 2002) (see Appendix 7).
The literature of WBIOS proposed either re-specifications of the model of DeLone and MacLean, or suggested new models for the effectiveness of specific “e- domains“, such as e-business, e-commerce and e-government systems. For example, Molla and Licker (2001) used the theoretical leg of DeLone and MacLean’s model (1992) and produced an extended success model to fit the characteristics of e-commerce systems (i.e. transaction and customers services). Molla and Licker (2001) replaced the information quality dimension by the content quality. They argued that many website evaluation articles indicated that content quality (information, transaction and services) is one of the main variables that affect the satisfaction of website users (Zhang et al. 2000), and that the quality of the content was one of the determinants of positive customer attitudes, which can lead to buying product and completing transactions. The second added variables were trust, support and services (the
79 dimension of support and service was added later to the modified DeLone and MacLean model, and called service quality). Molla and Licker (2001) indicated that trust refers to the two important issues that are identified across studies in affecting the future of e-commerce systems; security and privacy. Similarly, many inter-organizational systems success studies asserted that trust is one of the most critical factors for sustained relationships, and that it needs to be raised between stakeholders for effective IOS implementation (McKinney and Gerloff 1997; Allen et al.
2000).
Generally speaking, while reviewing the literature of web-based IS, it has been found that e-customer satisfaction and service quality have dominated the discussion of effectiveness in web-based systems studies (Pather et al. 2003; Cheung and Lee 2005;
Schaupp 2005; Lai 2006; Minocha et al. 2006). For example, Schaupp (2005) asserted that consumer satisfaction is a central dimension of e-commerce; consumers must be satisfied with the systems to get more goods and services on-line. It is, therefore, an essential measure to determine the effectiveness of e-commerce systems. Also, Pather et al. (2003) proposed a model to evaluate e-commerce effectiveness based on combination of user satisfaction and service quality theories. However, it can be observed that this model does not give importance to integrate system or organizational factors, contrary to traditional (e.g. DeLone and MacLean model) and IOS studies (Lu et al. 2006). Furthermore, Lai and Wong (2005) added supportive strategies to the important effective implementation factors of WB systems. They named savings-related strategies for B2B and B2C companies, and marketing-related strategies for non-e-commerce companies. They argued that supportive strategies must be driven by analyzing different factors, including past performance as well as the views of different stakeholders.
On the other hand, IOS studies tend to encompass collaborative, organizational, technological and external factors. The collaborative factors stress the importance of the effective partnership in terms of economical, strategic, and social (value sharing and trust) corporation as well as effective communication (e.g. Kumar and Crook 1999;
Olson and Williams 2001). While organizational factors stress the need of having organizational support in terms of upper management support and commitment, training, implementation planning, estimation and impact evaluation (e.g. Bergeron
80 and Raymond 1992; Angeles et al. 2001; Gallivan and Depledge 2003) and control and power (e.g. Raymond and Bergeron 1996; Allen et al. 2000). Moreover, IOS researchers highlighted the key influence of providing significant financial recourse and technological skills on the effectiveness of IOS systems (Lacovu et al. 1995; Zhu et al. 2004). Zhu et al. (2004) revealed that the importance of organizational IT skills and readiness are reflected in the intensity of the system use and in turn on its effectiveness, in addition to effective IS/IT infrastructure (Lu et al. 2006; Premkumar 1995) and the diversity of commercial partners (Bergeron and Raymond 1992; Lacovu et al. 1995). Also, environmental contextual factors’ influence on IOS effectiveness have been highlighted by Zhu et al. (2004), who asserted that government has a great influence on IOS success in terms of either intensives or regulations which can increase the security and credibility of electronic transactions.
Considering the discussion above, it can be concluded that although studies on WB and IOS highlighted important aspects that enhanced our understanding on effectiveness and what can be evaluated, no WBIOS studies provide a comprehensive approach to evaluate the effectiveness of WBIOS. These studies produced fragmented effectiveness factors. Similarly, Garrity et al. (2005) asserted:
”there is little research addressing fundamental issues such as how electronic commerce systems success can be measured, whether existing measures of success can be applied. *…..+ Without a clear understanding of the dynamics of Web-based system success to guide firms, proper strategies and system designs are mere speculation” (2005, p. 2).
Therefore, WBIOS effectiveness is considered a complicated matter with various internal and external influences; such systems combine the characteristics of general IS in addition to their specific characteristics, which still need to be investigated in order to indicate a comprehensive set of factors to be considered when evaluating WBIOS effectiveness.
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