UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATION IN ORGANIZATION’S EFFECTIVENESS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON TWO SWEDISH ORGANIZATIONS

Skagne, Felix; Dalipi, Fisnik

doi:10.4301/S1807-1775202219005

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Original Article • JISTEM J.Inf.Syst. Technol. Manag. 19 • 2022 • https://doi.org/10.4301/S1807-1775202219005 copy

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATION IN ORGANIZATION’S EFFECTIVENESS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON TWO SWEDISH ORGANIZATIONS

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

ABSTRACT

Information systems (IS) exist in order to intensify the information flow within an organization, at all levels, specifically to allow set of data to reach the designated person, in the right format, and at the right time, generating a positive and beneficial contribution to the organization. Therefore, it is essential to investigate their intended purpose and how they affect the organization's effectiveness in particular. This paper aims to investigate two different implementations of information systems in two organizations and understand the impact these implementations have on the respective organization’s effectiveness. We use three antecedents, namely, time-saving, workload, and system reliability, to distinguish users’ perceptions and experience with the system and how they affect the organization’s effectiveness. An interpretative method is used, due to the paradigm’s focus on social constructions and human interpretations to explain reality. The result of the findings shows that the implementation of a new IS has a greater impact on an organization’s effectiveness, compared to an older system that gets updated and add-ons. By comparing diversities between different implementations of information systems, focusing on how the chosen approach affects the effectiveness in each organization, a better grasp, and understanding of an area that lacks research and attention is highlighted.

Keywords:
information system; implementation; organization effectiveness; antecedents; user satisfaction

Participant	Working Role	Years of Experience with the IS
Participant A	Business Controller	1
Participant B	Head of Department at Work and Welfare	2.5
Participant C	Budget Director	2.5

Participant	Working Role	Years of Experience with the IS
Participant D	Coordinator	10
Participant E	Administrative Officer	10
Participant F	Lawyer	4
Participant G	Administrative Officer	10

Participant	Response
Participant A	“[The IS]is definitely making it easier and more efficient to work and deliver more qualitative results. Instead of having isolated documents like we did before, everything is now available for everyone. The system provides the infrastructure needed to make our processes easier to oversee and follow up, both on the individual lever (i.e., my everyday work) as well as on a meta lever (i.e., the organization as a whole).”
Participant B	” I absolutely think that [that the workload has improved as a result of the IS]! Previously, a lot of work was involved to gather different information with several different origins within the organizing. I think that in the long run, overall, in the organization, that our workload will decrease […] The quality has become much better. [...] “I think the system creates a good condition for us to produce a better output. And it has. As I said in the beginning, our way of working is better because of the system since we can reach out to all our coworkers, no matter where they are in the organization, and forward the decisions of [the board] and the committees' budgets to each branch head, which means the conditions for reaching each employee increases a lot. [...] it has helped the administrations have a common conceptual apparatus. […] The system has contributed to a standardized way of working with business control and follow-up.”
Participant C	“We have much faster handling. We have a higher accuracy in the system since we can more clearly communicate about what information we are looking for, which has greatly affected our workload. It is much better! […] [The IS] makes it possible to get more accurate data. So, the effectiveness and accuracy result in a higher quality since we get a lot of reports from all the administrations and companies. [...] The workload was high during the implementation phase and a little while after that, but as it has progressed as our coworkers have become more familiar with the system, it has as a whole it made everything much easier. For example, it has become much easier and faster to complete reports, make budgets, and do analyzes. So, we clearly have a positive development of the system.”

Participant	Response
Participant A	“[The IS’ reliability is] Very good. Reliable, easy to use. User friendly and logical. Its efficiency and reliability lie within the system's openness and ability to be used by a great many people at the same time. All posts / follow-ups can also be tracked, so you can see who has written what and thus contact them if you need help or more info. Also, since the system is cloud-based, nothing can disappear if any G-directory crashes.”
Participant B	“Before, when we worked with Word documents and Excel files, it was very unstable. […] We had vulnerabilities and that, in the overall way, is not something you wish for, and that can’t count as a stable or reliable way of working. From a purely systemic perspective, Word didn't crash.”
Participant C	“The stability and reliability in the system are outstanding! But I can’t compare it to our previous way of working since they are nothing alike.”

Participant	Response
Participant A	“Time-saving has improved. Much easier to deliver and to get an overview. Everything is “open data”. […] It provides a transparent platform for analyzing a wide array of parameters, to follow up how the processes are carried out [..]My feeling is that it has improved and made [it] more efficient, all of the above (time of processing, delivery of service, and response to customers/clients).”
Participant B	“There are many features that have become better. It's almost that you, you don’t want to admit how we worked before. […] Before we used Word templates and Excel-files that we would send between us. […] So, if we compare it, it has become a 100% improvement […] When I have made a change in the system, my colleague, who works in the same document, sees the changes in an instant. It is a function that has been very important. […] If we had maintained the same level of ambition as before, then compared to that, the IS saved us a lot of time. But I think in many cases we have also raised our level of ambition through the system. We saved time with [the IS], I am absolutely convinced of that!”
Participant C	“[The IS] is a great system. It has helped a great deal to speed up our flows with reporting, guidance, and follow-up and control. So, it’s a great system and it's very easy to use. [..] we always get the reports, usually earlier than expected. So, I see it as an indication that things are getting better and better. And that also indicates that we are saving time and money on this ongoing.”.

Participant	Response
Participant D	“We only see the increasing workload and the need to hire more coordinators. […] (and it) has not resulted in an increased automatization. […] When an update has made a command possible it has not been updated further to make that command work more smoothly or better […] The best would be if the system were optimized for all tasks and could perform them all and be more automatic.”
Participant E	“In terms of productivity, there has not been a change between the versions but gradually between the versions. If you compare the first version with the one, we are on now, it is a huge difference. Then output is not entirely excluded based on [the IS] but also on directives from the management […] Our workload does not lie at a good level, which is a result of the influx. This system compared to previous ones allows us to handle workload better but not at a good level.”
Participant F	“Yes, yes it (the IS) is more efficient to work in today than compared to previous versions. It requires less hands-on effort […] However, the workload is the same. Much of the workload, in the current system, depends on the influx of documents, not the system. But we can handle the influx in a much better way than before, which helps keep the workload “low”.”
Participant G	“The workload is affected by the influx and what is happening in society and not the system, but we are constantly working to increase efficiency. I can produce more but if a new computer system was built then I could work a lot better. The present one is old and outdated. […] Compared to previous versions, now in hindsight, has it become apparent that the output has become greater and the system can handle a larger workload.”

Participant	Response
Participant D	“The System Reliability has become much better. In the beginning, [the IS] could be down several times a week, and for much longer periods of time. That doesn’t happen as often. Sure, it still goes down at times but not to the extent as before. [...] The system has truly been built up. It was not made for the tasks we use it for. When first implemented the change was huge but after that, even though new versions have come out and it has been updated the system has not yielded any significant changes to quality in service. Even though our tasks are basically the same.”
Participant E	“As I said before, you don’t see that much of a difference from one version to another, rather it is when compared in the long run from let say the first version and this version. Then the reliability has been improved a lot!”
Participant F	“Absolutely [the IS’s reliability has changed], but in terms of Reliability there’s a lot to be improved, it could be more stable just simply. For one, it could be updated so you won’t get as much, or never get, an error message. Which can slow down the system Sure it's better now than previous versions but it's still swaying.”
Participant G	“It has become much better! [...] I would like that we got a new system since I think the current one is old and can’t handle the stress that we who work in it put on the system […] It’s outdated.”

Participant	Response
Participant D	“Seen to time-saving: Our tasks are for the most part the same. Sure, we have gotten several new ones added. The main difference between this version, or current version, and older is that now we can do things in the system that were not possible before. We also have a lot of tasks that uses tools besides [the IS], and those tasks have not been affected by the updates of the system.”
Participant E	Don’t really know. I think it depends more on the directives from our bosses than the system. And also, on the influx. “
Participant F	A little better. The current system is better than previous versions in saving time and the amount of output I can create in the hours I work compared to earlier versions.”
Participant G	“Yes, the current version allows me to work more efficiently. I have a higher output capacity than before, and that is, to a large extent, because of [the IS]. But it can of course have its ground in other parts as well, example from the management. The time-saving is apparent.”

	Organization A	Organization B
Participants	A B C	D E F G
Workload	+ + +	- - ? -
System Reliability	+ + +	+ + - -
Time-saving	+ + +	? ? + +

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[1] Address for correspondence:
Felix Skagne, SAAB Group, Stockholm, Sweden, Email: felix.skagne@saabgroup.com; Fisnik Dalipi, Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden, Email: fisnik.dalipi@lnu.se