Management's Contribution to Internet Commerce Benefit - Experiences of Online Small Businesses

Abstract

The importance of management and Information Technology (IT) success had been repeatedly identified in small business IT studies (for example, DeLone, 1988). When measuring information satisfaction among small firms, top management involvement was found to be one of the most important factors (Montazemi, 1988). The quest for the role of management involvement in Information Systems (IS) success in small firms continued into the 1990s. For example, Yap, Soh, and Raman (1992) studied a group of Singaporean small firms using earlier findings and discovered that CEO involvement was positively related to IS success. CEO involvement such as attending project meetings, involvement in information requirement needs analysis, reviewing consultants’ recommendations and project monitoring are important to IS success. Thong, Yap and Raman (1996) pointed out that although management support was important, in cases where internal IS expertise was lacking, specialist knowledge (for example, engaging IT consultants in projects) was important to success. An in-depth study on motivators and inhibitors for small firms to adopt computing identified managerial enthusiasm as a key motivator (Cragg, 1998). The overseeing role of management during system implementation was found to be important to success. Management support was also found to be an important factor for IT success in the case of personal computing acceptance (Igbaria, Zinatelli, Craig, & Cavaye, 1997). All of these studies suggested that management involvement was critical to IS success regardless of cultural background.