The Influence of Quality on E-Commerce Success: An Empirical Application of the Delone and Mclean IS Success Model

Theoretical Background

The difficulties posed in assessing the success of an online presence as espoused by Hasan and Tibbits (2000) in that the system implemented must make a measurable contribution, implies that the measurement of the success of the system is fundamental to the ability of management to determine the contribution to business. Zhang, Keeling, and Pavur (2000) proposed that validated evaluation criteria would be critical to future decision making for online systems design. However the definition of “success” is controversial as the term itself is multi-dimensional and can be assessed at various levels of the organisation using many differing criteria.

DeLone and McLean (1992) sought to better define the dependant variable “success” in information systems by categorising six interrelated dimensions of IS success—System Quality, Information Quality, Use, User Satisfaction, Individual Impact and Organisational Impact—and encouraged future studies to acknowledge the multidimensional, interdependent and contextual nature of IS success. This model informed a large number of studies and has been updated as the D&M IS success model (2003) to include the variables “service quality” and “net benefits”.

DeLone and McLean (2003) also demonstrated the possibility of adapting their IS success model to the e-commerce environment. It is argued that, as the DeLone and McLean Model (D&MM) is based on communications theory, it is highly suited to measuring the IS and communications phenomenon that is the Internet (DeLone & McLean, 2003, p. 34). This process model, (as shown in Figure 1) is derived from a well accepted and tested model of information systems’ success (Molla & Licker, 2001; Seddon & Kiew, 1994) and is argued to be appropriate to the communications and commerce process common to e-commerce systems.

Figure 1.

Updated D&M IS success model (2003)