Global perspectives on organizational information systems issues: An enigma in search of a theoretical framework

Abstract

Information Systems (IS) research paradigms, models and findings are largely developed in the context of the United States and Western Europe and thus are largely applicable to the Western world and have limited relevance elsewhere. One area of IS research interest to both practitioners and academics is the elicitation of organizational/management issues related to the use of information technology (IT). The US-based Society for Information Management conducts an annual survey on these issues, but its findings are limited to the US. Given the current ethnocentric approach, the World IT Project, among other topics, examined the organizational IS issues in 37 countries and found that, as expected, the organizational IS issues varied widely from one organization to another and from one country to another. To better understand the nature of these issues and their driving factors, we have developed a multitiered theoretical framework to unravel these factors. This framework comprises three layers: an outer layer with three national-level factors, a middle layer with two macro-IT factors, and an inner layer with three organizational-level factors. Furthermore, 17 propositions are supported by the World IT Project data and secondary data. Such a framework has been long overdue and offers both practitioners and researchers value in understanding the global IS landscape.