User Involvement and Flexibility in Strategic MIS Planning: A Path Analytic Study

Palanisamy, Ramaraj

Abstract

This paper presents empirical finding on relationships between user involvement and flexibility variables in Strategic planning of information systems. 'Flexibility' has been considered for organization, MIS, and usage. The proposed research model assumes organizational flexibility as a dependent variable, MIS and usage flexibility us intervening variables and user involvement in MIS strategic planning as an independent variable. Hypothesis are formulated based on the proposed research model and are tested empirically by questionnaire survey. The sample size was 296 comprising of users and planners from 42 organizations randomly selected from eight different sectors. The measures for flexibility variable's are generated by idea engineering exercise. Scale tables explaining the dimensions of user involvement and flexibility were used to obtain the response for each questionnaire item. A set of predefined criteria was used to ensure the relevance of the respondents' for this survey.

The univariate results of the research variables are presented for optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic scenarios. The dimension-wise values for user involvement and flexibility variablen are given to gain more insight into each of the variable construct. The results of statistical analysis validate the relationship between user inolvement ad flexibility variables in strategic planning of MIS. Path analysis was carried out to predict organizational flexibility and usage flexibility. The causal explanations are given considering direct and indirect impacts of causal variables.

Keywords: MIS flexibility, MIS strategic planning, organizational flexibility, user involvement, usage flexibility

Introduction

A management information system (MIS) supports management decision making by providing information in the form of reports and responses to queries to managers at all levels of an organization (Nickerson, 2001). Increased investment in MIS, increasing strategic impact of MIS on the business (Boynton and Zmud, 1987) and evolving role of MIS in the organisation (Nolan 1979, McFarlan et al. 1983) have brought forward the MIS planning process as an important issue among the organizational processes. Earl (1989) validates that different planning approaches will bring different likelihood of success to the organization. The three stages of MIS planning are strategic planning, deriving organizational information requirements and resources allocation (Blumenthal 1973, Bowman et al. 1983). Some of the major activities in strategic planning are assessing organizational objectives, appraising business strategies, setting MIS mission, objectives, policies, and linking the MIS plan with the business strategies.

The major dimensions of MIS planning are the quality of the planning process (means) and the planning effectiveness (ends) (Premkumar and King, 1994). The prominent actors involved in the planning process are user, planner, and top management (Moynihan 1990); and the key variables are user and lop management involvement for planning effectiveness along with information inputs to planning (Premkumar 1992). Top management wants a more systematic planning process for MIS with better involvement of users (Brancheau and Wetherbe 1987, Hanog and Herbert 1986), Besides user involvement, other factors influencing the MIS planning process are quality of strategic business planning, resources allocated to planning, and management styles (Lederer and Sethi 1988, Raghunathan and Raghunathan 1988, 1989, 1991, Premkumar and King 1991). The major setbacks in the MIS planning practice are the lack of linkage between business and MIS (Lederer and Mendelow 1987, Galliers 1991) and the incapability of MIS to adopt and resonate with organizational information requirements (Pybuni 1983, Cash 1988).

Role of Users in MIS Planning

In the planning stage, users can give a more accurate and complete picture on the organizational information requirements (Robey and Farrow 1982); the capacity to handle any expected or unexpected changes in organizational strategy can be built into MIS by the lead of user advice and suggestions. The MIS fluidity can be imparted from the user's working knowledge about the business operations at various levels. Moreover, as the planners are not having organizational expertise adequately, it is the responsibility of the users to provide expertise.

Importance of Organizational and MIS Flexibility

Today's business environments are often fast moving, turbulent, and unpredictable because of ever changing trends in technology, global competition, and electronic commerce. These changes make the long-term strategies obsolete, and to cope with these dynamically changing environments, organizations have to develop flexible strategies, resources, and business processes (Lee, 2001). Also, organizations look for flexibility to quickly adapt to environmental changes and thereby gain an advantage over their competitors (Leana and Barry, 2000). Though a good information system can support this to happen, many times it fails because of its rigidity and passiveness in handling new situations. The information systems need to adapt to new changes and challenges with minimum cost. For e-business applications, flexibility and adaptability are high priority areas in the list of requirements (Evans, 1999). So, information systems researchers and practitioners recently started recognizing the importance of information systems flexibility (Byrd and Turner 2000, Duncan 1995).

Based on conceptual inputs about flexibility, a group of twenty participants in a workshop on information systems planning, gave their feedback for importance of MIS flexibility. The participants were all senior level managers with more than ten years of information systems usage experience. According to them, flexibility in information system facilitates more effective, fast, efficient, user friendly and open communication system to meet the user's information needs; multiplies the ability to respond to organizational changes and business conditions both within and outside the organization. Flexible flow of information engenders creativity in performance by inhaling outside changes and increases organizational effectiveness.

Flexibility enables to alter the information systems strategies whenever organizational strategies are changing, reduces the built-in resistance for change, and, eases the organizational strategic change process. Flexible MIS incorporates a federation of application systems to support competitive strategies, to analyze and solve organizational problems. Consequently, the information reports are to be designed and used in such a way thai they give basic understanding of the business situation as well as provide guidelines to make decisions.

In the literature, user involvement studies were administered in MlS development phases, but rarely empirical studies are seen on user involvement in MIS strategic planning, though it has been emphasized as a necessity for implementation success (Premkumar 1992, Jarvanpaa and Ives 1990). Empirical studies on dimensions of user involvement are also lacking. Similarly, MIS adaptability to organizational strategies has been emphasized (Tozer 1986, Certo and Peter 1991, Drucker 1994), but rarely empirical studies are available (Bahrami 1992, Leeuw and Voberta 1996). How to incorporate flexibility in MlS as well as in organization is also left unanswered.

Model for User Involvement in MIS Strategic Planning Generating Flexibility in MIS, and Organization

Figure 1 shows the research model proposing organizational flexibility as the dependent variable (outcome), MIS flexibility and usage flexibility as the intervening variables, and user involvement in strategic planning of MIS as the independent variable. In other words, MIS flexibility and usage flexibility are proposed as antecedent variable, the 'means' to achieve organizational flexibility. Every organization wants to free themselves from environmental forces by responding to them rapidly. With flexibility in information systems, organizations are in a better position to adapt to the changing directions and business circumstances with increased ability to respond to changing forces. To achieve this, a strong alignment between organization and MIS is proposed in the research model. Adaptability of information systems reports for new situations is referred by usage flexibility. Involving users in MIS strategic planning process is proposed to increase MIS flexibility by this means to increase organizational flexibility.

User Involvement in MIS Strategic Planning

User Involvement

In the MIS context user involvement is a subjective psychological state of the individual user in terms of importance of the user attaches to a given system (Barla and Hartwick 1989, Jarvenpaa and Ives 1991). User influence (Schonberger 1980, Edstrom 1977), participation in the MIS process (Ives and Olson 1984, Barki and Hartwick 1989), systems analysis activities by the user (Baroudi et al. 1986, Doll and Torkzadeh 1989), user's role to attain the MIS goal (Swanson 1974) are also treated as user involvement in literature.

Dimensions of User Involvement

Users can be involved in strategic planning of MIS by inviting them Tor consultations (consultative), or by having user representatives in the MIS planning team or steering committee (representative) or arriving a user led consensus in the MlS planning decisions (Mumford, 1981), In no involvement situation users are unwilling or not invited to participate in MIS planning; in symbolic involvement user's input is requested but ignored in the MIS plan; in involvement by advice user's advice for MIS planning is solicited through interviews and questionnaires (Lucas, 1974); in involvement by weak control users have "sign off' responsibility for MIS plan; in involvement by doing user is a planning team member (King and Rodriquez, 1981); and in involvement by strong control users pay directly for new development in MlS plan.

Measures for User Involvement

Measurement can focus on specific activities or events to which the user can respond to strategic planning of MIS relatively objectively (Olson and Ives, 1981). User involvement in strategic planning of MIS could be explaining and clarifying information requirements for MIS strategic plan, detailing input/output, stating MIS objectives and asking questions and providing answers in the MIS planning process (Franz and Robey, 1986).

MIS Flexibility

Upton (1994) defines flexibility as "the ability to change or react with little penalty in time, effort, cost or performance;" flexibility is the ability of a system to take different forms (Easton and Rothschild, 1988). Flexibility is a multidimensional concept demanding agility and versatility; associated with change, innovation and novelty; coupled with robustness and resilience, implying stability, sustainable advantage and capabilities that may evolve over time (Bahrami, 1992), Sushil (1997) defines flexibility as "the exercise of free will or freedom of choice on the continuum to synthesize the dynamic interplay of thesis ana antithesis in an interactive and innovative manner, capturing the ambiguity in systems and expanding the continuum with minimum time and efforts."

The competitive forces have immediate impact on the profitability and growth potential of the organization. In order to transform these forces in favor of the organization, active support from MIS is required, especially in handling new situations. The organizational information system has to adapt to new changes and challenges quickly with minimum effort and cost to capitalize on the opportunities. Mensah (1989) defines MlS flexibility as "the ability to respond and adapt to changing business conditions both within and outside the organization." Duncan (1995) captured the flexibility of IT infrastructure with platform, network/telecommunication, data, and applications. Byrd and Turner (2000) measured IT infrastructure flexibility with such dimensions as IT connectivity, application functionality, IT compatibility, data transparency, technology management, business knowledge, management knowledge, and technical skills.

MIS flexibility is the capacity of the information system to change or to adapt and adjust in response to new conditions, demands, or circumstances from the organization. The change in information requirements from organization and environment should be encountered successfully without exorbitant changes in the system. In general, the objectives of MIS flexibility are satisfying information requirements, decision support, futuristic applications, operational support, and response to organizational strategies. MIS flexibility handles special situations in organizational functions or industry needs (Diebold, 1965) and adapt to regulatory or other environmental changes (Bruns and McFarlan, 1987) especially quick and accurate responses to crisis. Betteradapted MIS to the technological and economic variables with high degree of integration to the organization increases the possibility of implementation success (Ein-Dor and Segev, 1978). Perhaps MIS objectives must be flexible enough to permit adaptation to the changing directions and circumstances of the organization (Sethi and Levi, 1977). MIS flexibility in the innovative dimension will be an important contributing component, MIS planning should have the built-in flexibility (Raghunathan and Raghunathan, 1991), to allow adaptation of MIS processes to new opportunities.

Usage Flexibility

Different users have varying expectations and the usage pattern depends on their individual differences. The users aspire for individual packages for their own work processes. Users who are extroverts may demand detailed information and those who are introverts may demand information encapsulation. The study identifies the following major issues in usage flexibility: role of MIS reports, decision making and management level of the user.

Role of MIS Reports: The operational reports could be obtained for understanding the business situation and the decisions could be taken by user's intuition, knowledge, experience as well as guided by the information reports. So MIS reports are to be flexible enough to meet the requirements to accomplish the objectives. If the objective is 'cost reduction', then reports have to support this; and when the objective is changed to ' increase in market share' then accordingly the reports have to supply the details.

Decision Making: At one extreme, UK decision maker can use intuition and experience supplemented by the information reports; and at the other end the decisions are taken as instructed by the reports without any subjective opinion of the decision maker.

Management Level of the User: Facts and figures provided by MIS are to be used with a varying degree of freedom by different levels of management. Al operational level, the degree of usage flexibility is less than that of the strategic level since rules and procedures mostly drive the operational usage. As strategic management demands lasier visualization of future scenarios, usage flexibility is extremely high at the strategic level. So the degree of usage flexibility is related with the management level.

Organizational Flexibility

Organizational flexibility is its capacity to respond to environmental changes. Leeuw and Volberda (19%) says "organizational flexibility is the degree to which an organization possesses a variety of actual and potential procedures, and the rapidity by which it can implement these procedures, in order Io increase the control capability of the management and improve the controllability of the organization and environment." In the functionalistic point of view, flexible organizations are open systems which can free themselves from environmental control (Burrel and Morgan, .1979). The environmental fluctuations are the challenges to the organization, which are disturbing the organization's equilibrium, to anchor the stability again (Bahrami and Evans. 1987), The organization has Io respond and self organize (Goguen and Varela, 1979) with simple fluid structures (Peters and Waterman, 1982) for minimizing the fluctuations (Smith, 1984). In other words, the organization seeks freedom from environmental influence (Dill, 1958, Aharoni et al. 1978), in order to adapt to the environmental changes (De Leeuw, 1982). For this, flexible and agile organizational forms are necessary which can be able to accommodate novelty, innovation, and change (Bahrami, 1992). So a flexible firm is open to new ideas (Ramnarayan and Bhatnagar, 1993, Atkinson and Meager 1984, Alkinson 1985) and these open systems are having continuous exchange of inputs and outputs (Morgan, 1986). The speed with which the organization adapts to the environmental changes matters the success of the organization (Dumaine 1989, Hammer and Champy 1994).

Strategic Flexibility

Hart (1937) defines strategic flexibility as "the ability to do things differently or do something else when the need arises." It is viewed as the capability to change a firm's strategy to respond to environmental changes in a timely and appropriate manner (Das and Eiango, 1995). Strategic management has been regarded as a flexible planning process to resonate with organization's environment (Certo and Peter, 1991). Need for flexible capacity in the organization and flexible strategies for organizational growth (Goold and Campbell, 1987) are emphasized for organization growth. Hamel and Prahalad (1989) in their study of global organizations identified successful organizations with clarity in strategic intent and the success has been achieved by flexible means. The need for linking flexibility, organizational strategy and environment is discussed by Krijnen (1979), Aaker(1984) and Quinn (1985). The art of balancing the control and inducting flexibility in the organization referred by Staeey (1993). Balancing is required in the global and local operations, big and small groups, centralization and decentralization (Taylor, 1991). A radical reshaping from the traditional organizational landscape becomes the need of the hour (Child, 1987). Especially at the strategic level, organization has to reposition and refocus quickly (Bahrami, 1992).

Research Hypotheses

Following hypotheses on user involvement in MIS strategic planning, MIS flexibility, usage flexibility and organizational flexibility are evolved from the proposed research model:

H1. User involvement in MIS Strategic planning increases the possibility of MlS flexibility.

H2. The more flexibility in MIS, greater the possibility far organizational flexibility.

H3. User involvement in MIS Strategic planning increases the possibility of usage flexibility.

H4. The more flexibility in MIS influences a higher possibility of usage flexibility.

H5. The more flexibility in usage increases the possibility of organizational flexibility.

H6. Usage flexibility mediates the relationship between MIS flexibility and organizational llexibility.

H7. MIS flexibility mediates the relationship between user involvement in MIS strategic planning and organizational flexibility.

H8. MIS flexibility mediates the relationship between user involvement in MIS strategic planning and usage flexibility.

Methodology

The proposed research model includes dynamic interactions among user, MIS, and organization that are complex systems with unpredictable behavior. The antecedent elements namely user involvement in MIS strategic planning and MIS flexibility may or may not influence the predicted behavior of organizational flexibility. Since the hypotheses are formulated to tesi this behavior, empirical data explaining the interactions are required. The people involved with the system are users, planners, and top management and users are distributed in all levels of management namely operational, tactical, and strategic. Therefore, a questionnaire instrument can be used to collect empirical data from them. Statistical analysis of data can reveal the results of hypotheses testing.

The research variables in the model are of qualitative nature, and to gain more insight into each of them the dimensions of involvement and flexibility can be used. To handle the ambiguity in the interaetionanamong the qualitative variables, fuzzy quantifiers are suggested. Since the standard measures for flexibility are not sufficiently addressed in the literature, filed generated measures are proposed. For this purpose, idea-engineering exercise is recommended as a tool.

Measures of User Involvement and Flexibility Variables

A construct is an abstract representation of a phenomenon of interest. User involvement in strategic planning of IS and flexibility variables are the construct of interest in this study. Churchill (1979) suggests a procedure to develop a better measure for the variables. The procedure includes specifying the domain of the construct, generating a sample of items to capture the specified domain, and statistically assessing the construct validity to purify the measure. Byrd and Turner (2000) followed this procedure to develop a construct for flexibility of information technology infrastructure. According to them, the domain of a construct is same as the definition of the concept and views of several authors about this concept. These views are synthesized into the construct definition and are characterized into dimensions of the construct. Reviewing the literature, the underlying dimensions of the construct were identified. A similar approach is followed to identify the dimensions of involvement and flexibility construct. Here dimensions refer various aspects of a construct. The dimensions and description of involvement and flexibility construct are given in the following sections.

This study differs from the traditional empirical studies in obtaining the responses for each item in the construct. Typically, dimensions are the various aspects of a construct and for each dimension the measurement items are developed. This study also assumes the dimensions as different aspects of a construct. The items to measure the construct were obtained empirically as explained in the subsequent section. For each item in the construct and for each dimension, the respondents were instructed to recollect from the mental database in terms of a possibility value. The respondents learned about the dimensions through an instruction sheet accompanied by the questionnaire. In some cases, the researchers conducted inhouse workshops to explain the dimensions of involvement and flexibility. After recollecting from the mental database, the respondent arrives a fuzzy set of possibility values for each item in the construct. Comparing the fuzzy sets given in the instruction sheet, the respondent chooses a one, which is closer to the arrived fuzzy set. The qualitative value correspending to the chosen fuzzy set in the scale table will be the final response to the item for the construct under consideration.

Measures for User Involvement in Strategic Planning of MIS

For user involvement in strategic planning of MlS, field generated measures are used besides standard measures. Fourteen MlS experts from industry and aeademia participated in this exorcise to generate measures and they are given in Appendix I.

Measures for Flexibility Variables

The measures for flexibility variables were generated by using idea engineering exercise; twenty two senior managers from public and private sector organizations participated in this exercise. The responses were obtained with the worldview: 'User involvement generates a flexible MIS'. The determinants for organizational flexibility, MfS flexibility, and usage flexibility are identified. The determinants of organizational flexibility are: organizational skill upgradation, tuning the organization to face competition, technology absorption for upgradation. organizational strategies for flexibility and organizational climate for open communication. The determinants of MIS flexibility are: MIS focus, nature of application systems, information systems support, informal ion availability for strategic change, and information systems model. The determinants of usage flexibility are: role of MlS reports, usage of reports, user level in the management hierarchy and the individual difference. Based on the above determinants the measures for flexibility variables are generated and shown in Appendix I.

Dimensions of User Involvement

The dimensions of user involvement considered in the study are control, responsibility, advice, and symbolic (Mumford and Henshall, 1983). When the users perceive certain application systems are critical for their job enrichment, they go to the extent of developing them out of their own budgets. Here the users show high level of commitment for MIS planning; the deviations of MlS plan from user expectations are controlled by the users themselves. MIS planning committee could involve user representatives from functional areas; each user representative takes sign off responsibility at each step of the MIS planning process. Though some of the information systems do not directly affect the job routine of each individual user, for the benefit of the organization, the user takes responsibility in explaining the information links between the different functional areas.

User views on MIS policies, guidelines, rules, procedures are solicited through questionnaires and interviews. Here users play advisory role in planning information systems. In some cases, interactive involvement may not be there, but one time inputs are obtained in the form of advice and views. Symbolic Involvement of users is shown if the users are not able to assess their information requirements. Lack of expertise from the users or unwillingness may disqualify them from the MlS planning process. In these situations, users are involved tangenlially; and their inputs are requested for the planning process and at the same time irrelevant inputs may be ignored.

Dimensions of Flexibility

Sushil (1994) gave the dimensions of flexibility as innovative, integrative, interactive, and intelligence. These dimensions are applied in the organizational and information systems context. "Innovation" dimension in information systems refer to creative problem solving and decision making; "Innovation" in organizations refer to making effective organizational changes to gain an edge over the competitors. The innovative organizations are able to survive and grow in the turbulently changing environment, "Interactive" dimension in information systems facilitates a more user friendly way of obtaining user inputs. In organizational context, 'interactive' dimension refers to different functional systems working together to make rapid response to the environmental changes.

"Integration" dimension of information systems speaks about combining ail the islands of application systems in a more holistic manner by providing a total solution to the organizational requirements. "Integration" dimension for organization is about combining various expertises from several functional areas to accomplish the business objectives.

"Intelligence" dimension of information systems brings the organizational knowledge in the form of information and data into the system. Organizational knowledge is driving the effective problem solving and decision making; and knowledge driven managerial processes is another dimension of organizational flexibility.

Weights for the Dimensions

The weights for the dimensions of user involvement and flexibility were obtained from twenty respondents who participated in a workshop on "Flexibility in Information Systems". The respondents were senior level MIS executives from Industry.

The weights for the dimensions of user involvement in a scale of 0-1 are as follows;

Responsibility - 0.4

Control - 0.25

Advice - 0.25

Symbolic Involvement - 0.1

The weights for the dimensions of flexibility in a-scale of 0-1 are as follows:

Innovation - 0.3

Intelligence - 0.3

Interactiveness - 0.2

Integration - 0.2

Need for a Scale Table

To answer a question, a respondent may recollect only a limited knowledge base and may give a qualitative judgement in little time. Another respondent may take more time to recollect a larger part of the mental database, to analyze different aspects of a construct and to synthesize the final response. It will be more convenient if the dimensions and quantitative conversions of qualitative judgements are given to the respondent before hand. For instance, giving the dimensions of flexibility and user involvement facilitate the respondent to recollect and to synthesize the response on a standardized scale. Before giving the qualitative judgement about an item in Lhe questionnaire, the respondent is required to think in two steps. In the first step, the dimensions of the construct are to be kept in mind and obtain the response on each dimension. In the second step, the responses are to be aggregated to arrive at the final qualitative judgement.

For example, the selected dimensions of involvement for this study are responsibility, control, advice and symbolic. For the item "user involvement level in explaining the business mission and the business strategies", user recollects from the mental database about his/her experience in each dimension of involvement. To what extent the user took corrective steps to set right the deviated MIS plan will be the response for control dimension; to what extent the user took sign off responsibility at each stage of MIS planning will be the response in responsibility dimension; the extent the user played advisory role in clarifying policies, major guidelines and procedures pertaining to business strategies will be the involvement in advisory dimension; and lastly the extent to which user tangentialIy involved to assess the information requirements to MIS plan will be in symbolic dimension.

Multidimensional Seating and Fuzzy Sets

The scale matrix used in the study is the combination of multidimensional scaling and fuzzy set scaling. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a useful tool that enables the analysis of data in areas where organized concepts and underlying dimensions are not well developed (Chen et al. 2002), and concerns with similarity and dissimilarity between pair of objects (Oh and Raftery, 2001). Though multidimensional scaling has root in psychology, recently the interest has increased because of its usefulness especially in the field of information retrieval for the Web and other document databases (Schuze and Silverstein, 1997).

The basic component of fuzzy set theory is its rating of membership in terms of possibility values. Simply put, in classical logic a crisp set has true or false membership whereas in fuzzy logic a set is noncrisp (or fuzzy) with a membership ranging between null and full and its possibility value varying between O and 1. Responding to qualitative variables in a crisp way is subject to risk, because reference points are confounded by various characteristics of the respondents (Gaba and Viscusi, 1998). Even some times the qualitative judgements about a construct could be biased, because the process of triggering that response often varies from person to person. Gaba and Viscusi (1998) suggest to include quantitative judgments when people differ Ui their qualitative characterization. If such quantitative scale is not available, they propose to use a benchmark qualitative judgement accompanied by an appropriate quantitative counterpart. Accordingly, the study proposes a scale table, which includes qualitative judgments« ranging from "Very High' to 'Almost Nil" accompanied by its quantitative counterpart in terms of fuzzy sets.

User involvement in MIS strategic planning and flexibility variables are of qualitative nature, which can be captured by fuzzy quantifiers. The interplay between user, MIS, and organization is more complex; fuzzy quantifiers can capture the ambiguities and imprecise ness in the interplay. Moreover, achieving flexibility through user involvement is nonpredictable and the fuzzy sets are useful to predict the outcomes. The individual differences in the MIS planning team lead into some coercive and pluralistic views in the planning process; these pluralistic views can be better quantified by possibility values. The fuzzy set operations will be useful to reduce the unstructuredncss in involving users in the MIS planning process. As MIS planning is required for the entire organization, fuzzifieation of ambiguities in all levels of the organization ean be better represented by possibility values. Types of user involvement and flexibility are characterized by their dimensions; and the degree of involvement and flexibility are represented by possibility values.

Field Generated Fuzzy Sets

The inputs for the scale tables were obtained from a group of nine MIS executives from public and private sector organizations. The dimensions of involvement and flexibility variables were explained to them and their opinion was solicited on the qualitative scale of 'Very High' to 'Almost Nil. For example, user involvement is 'Very High' means users show a very high involvement in control, responsibility, advice, and symbolic. The rating for each dimension was obtained in a scale of 0-1 resulting into a fuzzy set for 'Very High' user involvement. Similariy the fuzzy sets for other qualitative scales namely 'High'. 'Moderate', 'Low', 'Very Low', and 'Almost Nil' were obtained as shown in Appendix II a. The field generated fuzzy sets for flexibility is shown in Appendix II b.

Pilot Testing

The questionnaire items and instructions to use the scale table were tested with thirty five MlS practitioners fronj the field and academia. As a result, some items in the questionnaire were rephrased and more technical words were removed; instructions to use the scale matrix were simplified; duplicate and double-barreled questions were removed. The scale table construction including the dimensions of the research variables and fuzzy sets were avoided.

Validation Scheme

The validation scheme for the entire study includes validation on structure, behavior, and policy implications. The structure validation is testing for the objectives; behavior validation is for testing the behavior (results) generated by the survey, and policy implications are for validating the recommendations made by the survey (Sushil, 1993).

Structure Validation

Questionnaire Construction: The questionnaire items, the scale matrix and the dimensions of research variables were validated from field experts at the level of Directors and Deputy Directors of MIS. The measures for flexibility variables were developed through Idea engineering exercise in which twenty two senior level user managers from public and private sector organizations participated. Field generated measures add more confidence to the construct validity of the questionnaire. The sixteen items instrument was pilot tested with twenty five MIS practitioners who had more than five years experience in MiS usage.

Respondent's Relevance: The respondent's relevance for this study was ensured by a set of predefined criteria; the inputs of irrelevant respondents were ignored. By this data filtering process, higher confidence was assured on the data part.

Behaviour Validation

To ensure more confidence in the data analysis and results, the most extreme cases of data values were omitted from analysis; for this 2.5% on either side of me data distribution was excluded from analysis. For univariate and bivariate analysis, optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic data values were considered to obtain different scenarios.

Hypotheses testing: The hypotheses are validated by chisquare values with 0.0001 level of significance, this gives more confidence in the results of" hypotheses testing. The 'degree of association between the pair of variables was obtained by Pearson's correlation coefficient with 1 tailed level of significance at 0.01 and 0.001 level. The extreme values of data viz. optimistic and pessimistic values were also used to confirm the hypotheses by chi-square and correlation values. A hypothesis is accepted only if it is true in all the three different scenarios: optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic.

Policy implications: Management intervention points and recommendations suggested by the study were validated with field experts. Different policies for involving users in strategic planning of MlS and organizationaZ flexibility were identified; the feasibility to implement these policies was cross-checked with experts through interviews.

Data Collection

Sample Design

The respondents for the survey were randomly chosen from users and planners population. The sample is random and purposive since the respondents were selected at random with a purpose of obtaining their views on involvement and flexibility. Forty two public and private organizations were selected at random from eight different sectors including service, information consultancy, engineering, automobile, consumer goods, consumer durable, high technology and Government. To diminish the skewnes^ on data from the same geographical region and to get views from widely scattered population, the survey was conducted in three major cities of India: New Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore. The sixteen items questionnaire instrument was personally administered to 296 respondents from 42 organizations. The respondent's profile with number of respondents in each sector is given in Table 1.

Respondent's Relevance

User respondents were selected from strategic, tactical, and operational level of management. The managerial level of respondents and distribution of organizations based on annual sales turnover are given in Table 2. The relevance of the respondent was ensured by the following criteria: functional expertise of the user, managerial level of the user and number of years of experience in MlS usage.

Functional expertise of the user: When a user is specializing in the same function for a number of years, explaining the functional strategies and linking them with (he MlS plan will be much easier. Detailing the inputs for MlS llexibility in the functional area will be much better.

Managerial level of user: Since the MIS planning horizon and focus vary for each managerial level, including users from operational, tactical, and strategic level will be appropriate for the study.

Experience in MIS usage: MlS usage experience enables the users to have more exposure to MIS planning activities. The usage flexibility in reports will be much clear for experienced users than novice users.

Relevance Score for the Sample

The relevance score for each respondent was computed based on the criteria; the individual score for relevance ranges from 0.4 to 1. The most likely aggregated score for the sample is 0.76 indicating a fairly high relevance. Optimistic and pessimistic scores are 0.95 and 0.45 respectively, and 95% of the total respondents' relevance score falls between this range.

State-of-the-art Analysis: Univariate Analysis

Conversion of Responses to Fuzzy Sets

In the survey, the final responses were obtained in a qualitative scale ranging from 'Very High1 to 'Almost Nil'. A respondent arrives a qualitative judgement for an item after synthesizing the responses in all four dimensions of the variable construct. To get back the response in each dimension, the qualitative responses were reconverted into fuzzy sets. This was done wilh reference to the standardized scale table. For example, if a respondent's response was "Moderate" for an item on user involvement then with reference to the scale table, the fuzzy set conversion will be {0.6, 0.4, 0.5, 0.4}. These elements are the possibility values for the given item in user involvement dimensions namely responsibility, control, advice, and symbolic respectively. For convenience, these possibility values were multiplied by 10 to get the possibility values in a 0-10 interval scale. Thus qualitative response "Moderate" is equivalent to the fuzzy set {6, 4, 5, 4}, The aggregated value for the item is the weighted average of these scores and in this case, it is 5.05, In this way, the aggregated values for each item to the entire sample of 296 were obtained.

Reasons for Three Values for Each Item

From the data distribution of aggregate values, optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic values for each item were identified and based on the content of each questionnaire item, important theme was identified and shown in Appendix III. To obtain a more realistic value for each item "Most likely" value could be used. Though Optimistic' value is some what difficult to achieve by all organizations, but helps to set a target for the desired state of involvement and flexibility; and "Pessimistic" indicates the undesired state. The three point values for each item can be used by other studies as better estimates and in any simulation to draw different scenarios. Optimistic values may be true in case of a favorable organizational context such as positive organizational culture for MIS planning, high level of maturity and sophistication in information systems growth in an organization, top management support and so on. The causes to achieve optimistic values could be explored further to generate the best-case scenarios in an organization and to avoid the worst-case scenarios. The optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic values for each item in the questionnaire are shown in Appendix III.

Optimistic, Most Likely and Pessimistic Values for the Dimensions

In this study, a variable construct is measured by four items, and each item measures the four dimensions of the construct. So for each variable, sixteen scores are obtained. The arbitrary fuzzy set for four items representing a variable is as follows:

{S^sub i11^, S^sub i12^, S^sub i13^, S^sub i14^, S^sub i21^, S^sub i22^, S^sub i23^, S^sub i24^, S^sub i31^, S^sub i32^, S^sub i33^, S^sub i34^, S^sub i41^, S^sub i42^, S^sub i43^, S^sub i44^}

where Sijk is the respondent's score for Ith variable, Jth item in the Kth dimension. The variable 'i' is measured by four items. As the scores for each dimension is in the interval scale of 0-10, the arithmetic mean is used to find the most likely values. In other words, simple average of {S^sub i11^, S^sub i21^, S^sub i31^, S^sub i41^} gives the 'most likely' response of a respondent in the first dimension of the variable. The 'most likely' values for each dimension of the variable for the sample of 296 respondents were plotted as a frequency distribution. The least value has been chosen as the pessimistic value and the maximum as the optimistic one for the entire sample. In doing so the extreme values in the frequency distribution were omitted as they were having a single digit frequency. For calculation purpose, the cutoff point was 2.5 % on both sides of the frequency distribution.

Optimistic, most likely and pessimistic values for responsibility, control, advice and symbolic dimensions of user involvement are shown in Figure 2(a). Optimistic, most likely and pessimistic values for innovation, intelligence, integration and interaction dimensions of MTS flexibility, usage flexibility and organizational flexibility are given in Figures 2(b), 2(c), and 2(d) respectively.

The dimension wise values are useful to get more insight into each dimension of a construct. For instance, dimension-wise values for user involvement help to know the degree of involvement by responsibility, control, advice, and symbolic. These values are useful to identify and diagnose the causes in case of low involvement. If the involvement is less in any front, the importance can be understood by the weights and accordingly the management can lake corrective action. For example, if less responsibility is shown by the users in MIS planning exercise, management need to mediate to involve them for more responsibility. Also the dimension-wise values and the weights are useful to assign priorities for management intervention. Similarly, the dimension wise values for flexibility variables are useful to diagnose the flexibility status in different front namely by integration, innovation, interactive, and intelligence.

Overall Values for the Variables

The overall value for a variable was obtained by aggregating its dimension-wise values. For aggregation the weights of the respective dimensions had been used. For instance, to obtain the aggregate value for user involvement the weights (0.4, 0.25, 0.25, 0.1) were used. The overall standard deviation was computed based on the weighted average of four dimensions of the respondents. The overall values for each variable in optimistic, most likely and pessimistic scenarios are reported in Table 3. It can be seen that usage and organizational flexibility in the surveyed organizations show more than 5 in a scale of 0-10.

Hypotheses Testing for User Involvement and Flexibility Variables

For the hypotheses testing, besides the "most likely" values from the data distribution, the extreme values of data namely optimistic and pessimistic values were considered. Testing the hypotheses with the extreme values of empirical data gives more confidence in accepting or rejecting them. This is because a hypothesis that is true with most-likely value set, may fail to stand in an extreme scenario. In those cases, the hypotheses are to be accepted subject to certain extreme conditions and to be cautious in interpreting the results in the vicinity of data distribution. For unconditional acceptance, the hypotheses are to be tested in all cases including the extreme scenarios and thereby any uncertainty in the conclusion will be reduced.

The scale table has both fuzzy sets of possibility values and the ordinal scale. The possibility values are in interval scale (in an interval of 0-1). The qualitative values from 'Very High' to 'Almost Nil' are in ordinal scale. Also the scale table facilitates to convert interval to ordinal data by converting the fuzzy sets to qualitative values. Therefore, the sample data can be viewed in interval mode of data by considering the fuzzy sets of possibility values and by omitting the qualitative values. On the other hand, the qualitative values, which are the defuzzified fuzzy sets, will result into ordinal scale.

To test the relatedness of two variables, (i) when the data for them is in interval scale, Pearson correlation coefficient is an appropriate statistic and (ii) when the data is in ordinal scale chi-square would be an appropriate statistic (Motulsky, 1995). Since the data collected in this study could be viewed in both interval and ordinal through the scale table, for statistical testing purposes both the modes of data were considered. Accordingly, for each mode, an appropriate statistic was used namely Chi-square test for ordinal form of data and Pearson correlation co-efficient for interval form of data.

The Chi square test of independence examines the association between two qualitative or categorical variables and Pearson correlation coefficient quantifies the degree of association between them. The chi-square test discloses whether scores on the two variables are independent or related; of course with an assumption that the sample is random and the sample data is nominal or ordinal. Hence the Chi-square test of independence authenticates the relatedness of two variables. SPSS package was used to compute the statistical values and results of hypotheses testing are summarized in Appendix IV.

Chi square and correlation values shown in Appendix IV support the following hypotheses at 0.001 level of significance:

H1. User involvement in MIS Strategic planning increases the possibility of MIS flexibility.

H2. The more flexibility in MIS, greater the possibility for organizational flexibility.

H3. User involvement in MIS Strategic planning increases the possibility of usage flexibility.

H4. The more flexibility in MIS influences a higher possibility of usage flexibility.

H5. The more flexibility in usage increases the possibility of organizational flexibility.

User Involvement in MIS Strategic Planning and MIS Flexibility

The results in Appendix IV show a significant Chi-square value for user involvement in MIS strategic planning and MIS flexibility and validate that the two are related in the optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic data values. The degree of association between them is positive (r=.2562) at 0.001 level of significance.

MIS Flexibility and Organizational Flexibility

The Chi-square value in Appendix IV shows that MIS flexibility and organizational flexibility are not independent and validate that the two are related on optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic data values. The results on correlation coefficient show a high positive association (r=0.5479) at 0.001 level of significance.

User Involvement in MIS Strategic Planning and Usage Flexibility

Appendix IV shows a significant Chi-square for user involvement in MIS strategic planning and usage flexibility and validate that the two are not independent on the optimistic, most likely and pessimistic data values; the association between the two is positive (R = 0.3496) at 0.001 level of significance.

MIS Flexibility and Usage Flexibility

Chi-square value in Appendix IV shows that MIS flexibility and usage flexibility are not independent and validate that the two are related on optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic data values. The correlation coefficient shows a positive association (R=0.3820) at 0.001 level of significance.

Usage Flexibility and Organizational Flexibility

Appendix IV shows a significant Chi-square for usage flexibility and organizational flexibility and validates that the two are not independent on the optimistic, most likely and pessimistic data values. The association between them is positive (R = 0.2774) at 0.001 level of significance.

Path Analysis

Path analysis was carried out to study the direct and indirect effects of causal variables. Path analysis is a method for discovering causes and the analysis was carried out with the intention of testing the theoretical considerations in the hypotheses H6, H7, and H8. Examining the amount of causal impacts gives more confidence in making statements about the actions to be taken to produce desired changes in the dependent variable viz. organizational flexibility.

A causal model consisting of user involvement in MIS strategic planning, MIS flexibility, usage flexibility and organizational flexibility is shown in Figure 1. The exogenous variable in this model is user involvement in MIS strategic planning whose variability is assumed to be determined by causes outside the causal model. The other variables are endogenous variables whose variation is explained by exogenous variables or endogenous variable in the system.

When the variables are expressed in standardized form (z scores), the path coefficients turn out to be standardized regression coefficients obtained in the ordinary regression analysis (Tukey 1977, Pedhazur 1982). So stepwise regression analysis was carried out at each stage of the path diagram and the standardized regression coefficients (the beta values of the regression analysis) were used as the path coefficients. The results of path analysis are shown in Figure 3.

Hypotheses Testing for the Causal Model

For the causal model, bivariate regression was carried out for each pair of variables. The path coefficients with the significant level for each pair are shown in Figure 3. The effect of MIS flexibility on usage flexibility is significant (P

The effect of user involvement in MIS strategic planning on MIS flexibility is significant (P

The effect of user involvement in MIS strategic planning on MIS flexibility is significant (P

Causal Impacts for Organizational Flexibility

The direct and indirect impacts on organizational flexibility are shown in Table 4. The direct effect of an exogenous variable is shown by the path coefficients and the indirect effect is generated by the intervening variables. The indirect effect is measured by the product of the path coefficients in each cause effect link of the route under consideration. In case of more than one indirect path, total indirect effect is the sum of all possible routes leading to the endogenous variable. The total impact on the endogenous variable is the sum of direct and indirect effect. The result on the causal impact for organizational flexibility from MIS flexibility is shown in Table 4. For organizational flexibility the direct effect from MIS flexibility is 0.39 and the indirect effect is 0.14, which is through usage flexibility. As a result the total effect on organizational flexibility from MIS flexibility is 0.53.

The results on the causal impact for organizational flexibility from user involvement in MIS strategic planning are also shown in Table 4. This is in support of hypothesis H7. For the endogenous variable organizational flexibility, the direct impact from user involvement in MIS strategic planning is nil; the indirect impact is 0.19 through three routes; first is through MIS flexibility, second is through usage flexibility and the third is through MIS and usage flexibility together. As a result total effect on organizational flexibility from user involvement in MIS strategic planning is 0.19. This can be used to predict the organizational flexibility from user involvement in MIS strategic planning.

Causal Impacts for MIS Usage Flexibility

The result on the causal impact for usage flexibility from user involvement in MIS strategic planing is shown in Table 5. This is in support of hypothesis H8. For the endogenous variable usage flexibility, the direct impact from user involvement in MIS strategic planning is 0.21, the indirect impact is 0.14 through MIS flexibility. The total effect on usage flexibility from user involvement in MIS strategic planning is 0.35. This can be used to predict the usage flexibility from user involvement in MIS strategic planning.

Discussion

MIS Flexibility and Organizational flexibility

Agile companies depend heavily on information technology to support and manage business processes, while providing the information processing capability to treat masses of customers as individuals (O' Brien, 1999), Organizational flexibility allows a company to harmonize with other companies even with competitors; agile organizations leverage the impact of its information systems to bring new and innovative products to market as rapidly and cost effectively as possible. To upgrade and expand the organizational skill for more flexibility, information should be available to identify the required organizational skills. Customers expect the best technology and performance from the products and services; accordingly organizational technology is to be upgraded. The emerging technologies could be outsourced and the matured technologies could be developed indigenously to provide total solution and convenience to the customers.

In order to orchestrate with the organizational flexibility information systems need to he developed to support operational, tactical and strategic levels of management in a balanced manner. Application systems to support and implement organization's competitive strategies are to be incorporated in MIS planning. For example, if the competitive strategies are cost leadership, differentiation and growth then MIS should facilitate to implement these strategies. To achieve this, MIS with Extranet technology can be used to lower the cost to customers. Products and services are to be differentiated with innovative features such as on-line tracking of customer orders. Organizational growth is achieved by providing information support to regional and global business operations with technologies like global telecommunication network.

MIS Flexibility and Usage Flexibility

Information Systems applications development should focus on individual as well as group usage. To cater to the individual, the features of MIS and Decision Support Systems can be combined to feed the strategic information needs. For a group, information systems can provide interactive support to managers for their decision-making processes. Managers must be able to use the information systems to create scenarios by doing 'what if' kind of analysis as well as must be able to use the reports for routine decision making.

Information reports generated from operational and strategic systems should enable the managers to manipulate targe amount of detailed and consoiidated data from many perspectives. To increase the flexibility at the strategic level, more decision supporting systems are required and at the operational level more decision making systems are required. Provisions are to be given to make decision maker's own insight and judgement in the decisions, MIS should provide more aggregate and consolidation reports as well as detailed and drilling-down reports. For example sales data can be rolled up to districts, and districts can be rolled up for regions to have more aggregate reports. Similarly detailed reports such as sales by individual products or by sales reps should be also provided for more usage flexibility.

User Involvement in MIS Strategic Planning and MIS Flexibility

Though in general all the users are equal stockholders in MIS planning, perhaps due to their routine commitments all of them might not be involved, but user representatives from the key departments can participate. The users can explain the strategies and future changes in their own business departments, accordingly provisions are to be made in MIS to react to such new situations. To balance the application development at operational and strategic level, user from both levels are to be involved to get inputs to the MIS planning process. Users can explain in what way the information systems can respond rapidly for strategic changes. User inputs are important from planning to screen implementation of an application system.

MIS planning working group including user representatives can conceptualize different modules linking with business strategies at the corporate and operational level to support and implement organization's strategies. Users play a key role in translating the business mission and objectives into MIS mission and objectives. Thus the business development plans can be linked with the MIS plans. In analyzing IT trends and its impact, users should be exposed to various sophisticated systems and new packages. In detailing the strategies and directions of information systems development, the departmental nominees at the working committee can interact with the MIS staff to lay down policies on MIS prioritization and budgeting for the prior areas of applications.

User Involvement in MIS Strategic Planning and Usage Flexibility

By allowing the users to have more hands on experimentation with information systems prototypes, suggestions for usage flexibility can be obtained. Users can detail the information systems modules, which are to be independent and homogeneous and at the same time should be capable of being utilized for the future. The information reports generated by different modules should benefit the users for creative thinking and scenario building rather than simple menu driven. In the planning process, users can classify the required information for usage based on the user type and functional area. For instance production information for top management may be reported in the on-line mode whereas commercial information for purchases can be in off-line mode.

The information reports are to be designed for user's current needs and likely needs. As each user's needs are liable to change, by involving them, visualization of future requirements could be addressed. User nominees from the functional areas can explain the different reports and queries needed to the planners. The users can better see the contents of aggregate information reports and detailed information reports.

Usage Flexibility and Organizational Flexibility

For better customer service, organizations are preparing to renew the skills in traditional and advanced areas. Consequently organizational processes are to be upgraded with the state-of-the-art technology. To implement the strategic business processes, management has to be well informed about all possible alternatives. By using information systems, managers must be able to manipulate the databases to generate scenarios to understand the given situation. Besides, usage flexibility enables the managers to react quickly to market pressures.

Information reports usage should trigger the decisionmakers for creative thinking so that innovations could be incorporated in the organization's renewal process. Organizational decision making process is facilitated by using both decision making and decision supporting systems. For the strategic level business processes, aggregate and critical information is required and at the same lime operational level requires detailed reports; one can achieve this with more usage flexibility. As the MIS usage flexibility increases organizational flexibility increases. Flexible flow of information in all functional areas enables the organizations for cheaper and quality products with reduced lead-time.

Concluding Remarks

When there is flexibility without any intent then the identity will be lost. So some outline is required within which flexibility could be achieved. Flexibility in information systems can be achieved with reference to organizational goals and objectives. The further development and expansion of applications can be done within this boundary. Flexibility should be incorporated in the entire communication process between the sender and receiver avoiding any possible noise factors or controversies. The work culture in the organizational set up has to be changed for more information driven management.

Instead of restricting the users to specify their information requirements alone, they can be involved in a distributed manner in various stages like planning, design, development and implementation of information systems. Identifying the people who are directly related to information systems usage and involving them as stake holders in the MIS planning team is a crucial task for success. Top management commitment will facilitate a successful planning process. Creating an opportunity to the users to have discussions with their counterparts in bench marking organizations can generate willingness for their involvement. User's knowledge about IT and education to plan, build, and use MIS can facilitate for more involvement. Also, experience in earlier interaction with MIS planning team could pressure the users for meaningful involvement.

To gain more insight into user involvement and flexibility, dimensions have been considered and the priorities are obtained from the field to reduce the researcher's bias. For further research, relationships between the dimensions of involvement and flexibility can be studied to explore how the users could be involved for more MIS flexibility and how MIS flexibility can be increased to achieve more organizational flexibility.

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Ramaraj Palanisamy

Assistant Professor

Department of Information Systems

St. Francis Xavier University

P.O. Box: 168

Antigonish. Nova Scotia

CANADA B2G 2W5.

Sushil

Department of Management Studies

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi

Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110 016, India

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