The impact of technologicalfactors on information systems

success in theelectronic-government context

Ramlah Hussein and Nor Shahriza Abdul KarimDepartment of Information Systems, Faculty of ICT,

International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and

Mohd Hasan SelamatDepartment of Management Information Systems,

Faculty of Computer Science and IT, Universiti Putra Malaysia,Serdang, Malaysia

AbstractPurpose – This study is being conducted in order to investigate the influence of technological factorson up-stream model of Delone and McLean’s IS success dimensions.

Design/methodology/approach – Using a survey method, data were gathered from 201 users fromfour electronic government (EG) agencies in Malaysia. The technological factors were represented by IScompetency, IS facilities, IS integration, IS structure and user support. The IS success dimensions usedin the study were systems quality, information quality, perceived usefulness, and user satisfaction.Findings – The findings indicate that all the technological factors are significantly correlated withthe four IS success dimensions. Further analyses also found that IS competency and IS facilities werethe two highest predictors of IS success, followed by IS integration. The study concludes that thetechnological factors investigated were very important in ensuring the successful utilization andimplementation of information systems in the EG agencies.Research limitations/implications – Future studies should consider other attributes besides thetechnological factors in order to look at success in a more meaningful way. Further research shouldalso look into the empirical studies on net benefits of IS success as included in Seddon’s and DeLoneand McLean’s models. Also, future studies should consider other sets of setting.

Practical implications – The findings should assist policy makers in formulating new policies ontechnical factors influencing systems implementation success. The study should also assist publicmanagers to identify the key technological factors in ensuring systems effectiveness and success.Originality/value – The study has incorporated the key technological factors as independentvariables into DeLone and McLean’s IS success model.

Keywords Information systems, Government, Competences

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionThe rapid growth in the use of information systems has led to several changes in theworkflow of both the private and public sectors. These changes have led private sectorunits to compete with one another in attempting to develop efficient services, improvedproducts and better systems. To date, the private sector’s use of information systems

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This paper was selected from the International Conference on Innovations in InformationTechnology (IIT’05) held at Emirates Tower Hotel, Dubai, UAE in 2005, by Guest EditorProfessor Nabeel Al-Qirim of the United Emirates University, UAE.

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Business Process ManagementJournal

Vol. 13 No. 5, 2007pp. 613-627

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited1463-7154

DOI 10.1108/14637150710823110

for achieving strategic advantages and gaining financial and business benefits faroutweighs its public counterpart.

Starting in the 1990s, the public sector’s conservative approach to using informationsystems began to change. Old and rigid systems were being replaced by the new flexiblesystems. Technologies such as e-mail, document imaging, electronic data interchange andthe internet had penetrated into the public sector market. The new information systemshave helped to overcome the problem of inefficient public service and information deliveryin the public sector (Seneviratne, 1999). Following the above development, severalcountries including Malaysia, had began embarking on the electronic government (EG)projects. However, the effectiveness of the EG system has yet to be reviewed.

In evaluating information systems effectiveness or success, DeLone and McLean(1992) proposed a comprehensive IS success model which was updated later in 2003.Their study on IS success was considered very significant in contributing towards auniversal model, which many researchers have employed when looking at the ISperformance. Attempts have also been made to validate their proposed model (Seddonand Kiew, 1994; Almutairie, 2001; Rai et al., 2002). In their most current discussion ofthe concept, the authors pointed that there was a huge gap in the IS studies in whichmany researchers seems to overlook (DeLone and McLean, 2003). Studies in IS successhad given few attention to the antecedent of the IS success. One important antecedentof IS success is the technological factor. It was envisaged that technological factorscontribute greatly to the IS success of an organization.

In addressing this research gap, we attempt to investigate the contribution oftechnological factors on IS success. The main objective of this study is to investigatethe relationship between technological factors and IS success in the context of theMalaysian EG environment. As a result of comprehensive review of relevant literature,five technological factors were identified in this study (Cahill et al., 1990; Grover, 1993;Caudle et al., 1991; King and Teo, 1994; Whyte and Bytheway, 1996; Tallon et al., 2000;Ang et al., 2001). These factors are IS facilities, IS integration, IS competency, ISstructure and user support. In addition, this study also seeks to validate the IS successmodel in the EG setting.

Research framework and hypothesesDespite the availability of other models (Grover, 1993; Salleh and Alshawi,2005), thisstudy adapted DeLone and McLean’s (1992) model to represent the IS success construct.The model was chosen due to its strength in validity and reliability through continuousvalidation made in many studies. The model had been found to be the most reliable andappropriate for this study. Since, its establishment in 1992, more than 200 studies havebeen reported to cite and test this model (DeLone and McLean, 2003). The authorsproposed six dimensions of success as the dependent variables – system quality,information quality, system use, user satisfaction, individual impact and organizationalimpact. Seddon (1997) extended DeLone and McLean’s (1992) model by replacing ISuse into benefits of use. The author used perceived usefulness construct to substituteDeLone and McLean’s IS use construct. This study adopts Seddon’s perceived usefulnessas an IS success measure replacing system use as in the DeLone and McLean’s model.

Consequently, based on the up-stream portion of DeLone and McLean’s (1992) model,a research framework as shown in Figure 1 is developed. The framework showed theposition of the technological factors and the four IS success dimensions investigated.

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From the framework, five hypotheses were formulated. The relationships between thefour dimensions of IS success have been investigated (system quality, informationquality, perceived usefulness and user satisfaction) as shown in Figure 1. Overall, theframework shows the technological factors as the independent variables and the ISsuccess dimensions as the dependent variables.

IS facilitiesIS facilities refers to the availability of IS/IT resources and IS/IT infrastructureprovided during any IS project implementation. Infrastructural facilities were found tobe positively related with IS success and adoption (Grover, 1993). In an empirical studyby Grover (1993), IS infrastructure was found to be one of the top predictors of ISsuccess among several factors investigated. In a later study, Wixom and Watson (2001)found that the technology used for development is associated with technicalimplementation success.

Byrd et al. (1995) defined IT infrastructure as the shared information servicesdelivery base within an organization that is built around information technologies anda specific body of knowledge such as skills and experience. Using multiple casestudies, the authors focused on the influence of IT infrastructure on the nature of the ITplanning process in large, public organizations. The authors used IT innovativenessand IT sophistication to operationalize the IT infrastructure and found that largeagencies with mature IT infrastructures were better able to develop higher quality ITplans. In a recent study by Zu et al. (2003), they found that physical IT infrastructurecontributed to e-business adoption in European firms. We believe that provision ofsufficient and good facilities in any EG project implementation will result inimplementation success. Thus, the above discussion leads to the first hypothesis:

H1. IS facilities is positively associated with the IS success dimensions.

IS competencyAccording to Whyte and Bytheway (1996), IS competency refers to the degree to whichproject staff possesses the required skills and knowledge to perform the service.The authors found that IS competency contributed significantly to IS success.Previous studies had indicated that IS competency was found to be one of the top

Figure 1.Research framework

IS Success Dimensions

TechnologicalFactors

• IS Facilities• IS Competency• IS Integration• User Support• IS Structure

InformationQuality

SystemQuality

UserSatisfaction

PerceivedUsefulness

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ten dimensions for assessing IS function performance (Saunders and Jones, 1992).An effective IS function is able to recruit and maintain managerially competent staff.

Byrd and Turner (2001) found that organizations with a team of highly technicalstaff tend to have better IT infrastructure flexibility, and at the same time are able toincrease the organization’s competitive advantage in key business management areas.In another study, Byrd and Davidson (2003) found that IT department technical qualitywhich includes staff competency, had an influence on IT impact on the supply chainthat leads to the firm’s performance. From the evidence provided, we strongly believethat, the IS competency would be a significant contributor of IS success. Thus, wedevelop H2:

H2. IS competency is positively associated with the IS success dimensions.

IS integrationIS integration refers to the degree to which different systems are integrated in terms ofdata, functionality and appearance (Whyte and Bytheway, 1996). According toSaunders and Jones (1992), integration refers to the integration of technologies acrossother organizational units. They added, IS integration is needed to ensure a smooth andcost-effective flow of information across all business functions. The authors foundthat IS integration is among the top-ten dimensions of IS function performanceassessment. However, Grover (1993) did not find significant support for IS integrationin influencing IT adoption.

In a related development, in working a study on key issues in the IS management often nations, Watson et al. (1997) found that technology integration was ranked theeighth in the top ten most important issues identified. Bhatt (2000) found significanteffects of data integration and communication network integration on processimprovement initiatives and customer focus in Fortune 500 US firms. Bhatt’s (2000)results provided support to the contention that an integrated technology environmentis highly important considerations in providing business improvement initiatives.

The above discussion suggests that IS integration is an important factor in EGimplementation success. Thus, we develop H3 as follows:

H3. IS integration is positively associated with IS success dimensions.

User supportUser support deals with the technical support and help given to users in terms ofoperating the information systems in the organization. The importance of user supportto the success of user computing has been highlighted in many studies (Amoroso, 1988;Amoroso and Cheney, 1991; Buyukkurt and Vass, 1993; Igbaria et al., 1997). Manyresearchers have found significant support for the relationship between personalcomputing success and user support (Mirani and King, 1994; Vijayaraman andRamakrishna, 1990; Bergeron et al., 1990). In the EG working environment, we believethat technical support to users of the systems is crucial. Users will most likely seekhelp in using the systems in their daily operations. Thus, from here, we develop H4 asfollows:

H4. User support is positively associated with IS success dimensions.

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IS structureIS structure refers to the extent to which the information systems are structured ordispersed throughout an organization. Allen and Boynton (1991) and Boynton et al.(1992) pointed that, the extent of IS structure can be assessed by the existence ofcentralized computing structures, the dissemination of personal computers, or the use ofnetwork technologies. Ang et al. (2001) found that a distributed structure of IT facilitiesare associated with IT usage. The author found that a decentralized IS structure hasmore influence on IT use than a centralized IS structure. On the other hand, otherresearchers found that centralized IS structure tend to promote system’s efficiency andeffectiveness. We believe that IS structure, either distributed or centralized will haveinfluenced on system success. Thus, we posit the following last hypothesis:

H5. IS Structure is positively associated with IS success dimensions.

MethodologyPopulation and sampleThe population of study consisted of employees of the EG agencies in Malaysia. Since,1995, several e-government pilot projects had been implemented. Four EG agenciesfrom the central administration complex in Putrajaya were selected. The agencies wereselected based on their maturity being the pioneer in the e-government project andapplications. Pilot e-government projects were rolled out in these four agenciesspecializing in different types of e-government systems.

Prior to the actual field survey, initial visits to the selected agencies and meetingswith higher authorities at the agencies were conducted. A sampling frame wasacquired which comprised of current lists of employees from the agencies selected.Subjects for this study were then chosen using a stratified random sampling based ontheir position level. Only employees using an e-government system in their work wereincluded in the samples. From the sampling frames of the four agencies, a total of 450subjects were chosen as samples. The sample size was acquired from the table ofKrejcie and Morgan (1970) that simplified the sample size decision to ensure a gooddecision model.

MeasuresThe study used perceptual measures to capture data on IS success and technologicalfactors. Perceptual measures are acceptable measures in most survey research. In mostof the questions, a six-point Likert-scale was used to represent the responses of thesubjects. The forced-choice scale was adopted in the study to overcome the problem of“not sure” or “don’t know” responses (Zikmund, 2003). The forced-choice scale was alsoused to overcome the problem of too many neutral responses, which are commonamong Asian people when given the option to choose.

Where possible, DeLone and McLean (2003) supported the use of validated measuresfor IS success. Thus, the study adapted measurement items from related studies on ISsuccess. Five items from Doll and Tokzadeh’s (1988) and Davis’s (1989) were used tooperationalize system quality. Nine items from Doll and Tokzadeh (1988) were used tooperationalize information quality. Doll and Tokzadeh’s instruments were acceptablemeasures and had been validated by other researchers (Seddon and Kiew, 1994).

Four items from Seddon and Yip (1992) were used to operationalize overall satisfactiontowards the system. Items from Davis (1989) were used to measure perceived usefulness.

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Davis’s instrument had been widely used by researchers and hence his instrument was avalid and acceptable measure for the perceived usefulness construct.

Besides the above items, demographic factors (age, gender, educational level, joblevel, departmental level, and length of service), frequency of use, types of computertrainings attended were also measured. Frequency of use were measured using six-pointLikert scale, from 1 – never to 6 – always, for four different types of information systemsused (office automation, financial IS, human resource IS and Decision Support system).Types of computer training and courses attended were IT awareness, word processing,spreadsheet, e-mail, database, and presentation. Respondents were asked to response toeither “yes” or “no” for the trainings or courses attended.

A single item measure was used for each of the technological factors. Using asix-point Likert scale ranging from 1 – strongly disagree to 6 – strongly agree.Measures were adapted from Ang et al. (2001).

Data collectionThe study used a self-administered questionnaire to measure the system quality,information quality, perceived usefulness, and user satisfaction. The questionnaireswere pre-tested and distributed to members of the postgraduate students andacademics who are in the information systems area of specialization. The respondentswere asked to critically evaluate the questionnaire with regards to its objective,contents, clarity and ease of completion.

After the pre-testing stage, a modified questionnaire was developed for the purpose ofconducting a pilot study. The pilot study was carried out in three public agencies inPutrajaya. Ten questionnaires were distributed to each agency. About 20 questionnaireswere collected and they were found reliable. Prior to the actual fieldwork, thequestionnaires were refined and rephrased accordingly. The questionnaires were alsotranslated to the native language to cater for the lower job level group such as the clericaland the administrative support staff.

The modified questionnaires were then distributed to employees of the selectedagencies. A total of 450 questionnaires were distributed, and 201 were returned givinga 45 percent response rate. Users came from a range of functional areas backgroundincluding administrative, finance and human resource (38.7 percent), IT-relatedfunctions (37.7 percent) and other areas (23.6 percent).

Factor analysis and reliabilityFactor analysis with varimax rotation were performed on the IS success factors, andthe results were shown in Table I. Table I indicates that the factors have loaded on fourfactors ranged from 0.42 to 0.82. According to Hair et al. (1998), the appropriate cut-offsignificant loadings points based on 200 samples is 0.4.

Thus, based on the results of the factor analysis, the study accepted all the itemsthat represent the constructs. The items were tested for reliability and the results wereas shown in Table II.

Results and discussionsRespondents’ profileTable III provides a summary of the respondents’ profile. About two-thirds of therespondents (62.4 percent) were between 20 and 39-years old, followed by 37.6 percent,

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who were more than 40-years old. Slightly more than half of the respondents(55.8 percent) were female. Majority of the respondents (66.8 percent) had a Diplomacertificate or higher, followed by those (33.2 percent) having lower educationalbackground. The higher educational background of the respondents reflects that therespondents are either at least competent in IT or are at some point considered as ITliterate considering basic ICT as one of the requirements for graduation in mostcolleges in Malaysia and abroad.

Majority of the respondents (59.1 percent) held executive posts or higher. Thisproportion includes professionals, middle-level managers and top-level managers fromvarious fields. Only 4.5 percent of the respondents were from the top management level.These were the directors and deputy directors of various departments in their respectiveagencies. The low percentage represents the typical image of any government agency.

FactorItem 1 2 3 4

Systems easy to use 0.28 0.30 0.71 0.30System are user friendly 0.40 0.32 0.70 0.17Systems are easy to learn 0.27 0.23 0.80 0.21Easy to get system to do what we want to do 0.34 0.37 0.65 0.24Easy to become skillful 0.19 0.42 0.50 0.18Output presented in useful format 0.42 0.40 0.40 0.25Satisfied w accuracy of system 0.63 0.12 0.30 0.23Information is clear 0.69 0.27 0.29 0.16Systems is accurate 0.75 0.11 0.34 0.15System provide sufficient information 0.77 0.24 0.20 0.20Systems provide up-to-date information 0.75 0.28 0.13 0.21I get the info I need in time 0.65 0.27 0.19 0.32System provide precise information I need 0.79 0.28 0.14 0.26Information contents meet my needs 0.70 0.28 0.22 0.25Accomplish task more quickly 0.40 0.64 0.30 0.27Using the systems improves job performance 0.43 0.69 0.33 0.28Using system improves productivity 0.37 0.70 0.32 0.34Systems make job easier 0.39 0.74 0.26 0.34Systems enhance effectiveness in job 0.40 0.67 0.33 0.29System useful to job 0.41 0.72 0.25 0.27System adequate to meet info processing needs 0.20 0.23 0.27 0.73Systems are efficient 0.31 0.25 0.25 0.78Systems are effective 0.35 0.20 0.27 0.82Overall satisfied with systems 0.31 0.30 0.23 0.75

Table I.Rotated factor analysis

on the dependentvariables: IS success

measures

Construct Items in scale Cronbach’s a

Perceived usefulness 6 0.96System quality 5 0.92Information quality 9 0.94User satisfaction 4 0.94Technological factors 5 0.86

Table II.Construct and reliability

tests

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The high-level managers are those who make decisions pertaining to the policies andadministration of the agencies concerned. The support staff (40.9 percent) made up therest of the respondents. These are the employees involved at the administrative andtechnical support services level of the agencies concerned.

Table III also shows that more than half of the respondents (60.9 percent) hadserved the government for six years or more, this includes 21 percent of therespondents who had served the government for more than 20 years. The remainingrespondents (39.1 percent) had served the government for five years or less. Thesefigures show that the majority of the respondents had served the government for quitesometimes long enough to provide good evaluation of the IS used by the governmentthrough the conduct of this survey.

IS success factorsThe descriptive profile of the four IS success factors investigated, namely, systemquality, information quality, perceived usefulness and user satisfaction were shown inTable IV. Items for each factors were measured in a six-point Likert scale (1 – stronglydisagree and 6 – strongly agree). Items in each factor were than aggregated to becomea single measure of construct or factor within the IS success dimension. The resultsindicate that all measures of IS success are highly scored with mean ratings rangingfrom 4.61 to 4.93. High scores (above the mean of 3.5) indicate favorable user responseto the IS success factors evaluated.

Characteristic Item Frequency Percent

Gender Male 88 44.2Female 111 55.8

Age (years) 20-24 23 11.625-29 53 26.630-34 22 11.135-39 26 13.140-44 39 19.645-49 24 12.1$50 12 6.0

Education High school cert 66 33.2Diploma 50 25.1Bachelor 62 31.2Masters 19 9.5Doctorate 2 1.0

Job level Top management 9 4.5Middle management 51 25.8Executive 57 28.8Support (admin) 81 40.9

Length of work with government (years) Less than one year 19 9.51-5 59 29.66-10 31 15.611-15 25 12.616-20 22 11.121-25 25 12.6$26 18 9.0

Table III.Respondents’ profile

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The above average mean score implies that the Malaysian e-government agenciesare performing extremely well based on this user-based IS success evaluation.The result in Table IV gives the impression that the systems are easy to use (systemquality), are reliable in producing a favorable output (information quality), highlyuseful in enhancing task effectiveness (perceive usefulness), and overall, the users weresatisfied with the system implemented by their agencies.

The association between the four IS success dimensions employed in the study,perceived usefulness, information quality, system quality and user satisfaction arepresented in Table V. Based on the correlation analysis conducted, the results showedthat the four variables are significantly correlated with one another. This findingsupports past research conducted on the relationship between the four IS successfactors (Seddon and Kiew, 1994; Rai et al., 2002; Hussein et al., 2003).

Technological factorsTable VI shows the distribution of the mean score for each technological variablestudied. Respondents were asked about their perceptions towards each item using asix-point Likert scale (1 – strongly disagree, 6 – strongly agree). The result shows thatthe mean score for technological factors are ranging from 4.32 to 4.68. These meanscores are considered relatively high (above average score of 3.5) indicating favorableuser perceptions towards all the technological factors measured.

Items Mean SE SD Var.

IS facilities 4.68 0.064 0.91 0.81User support 4.58 0.071 0.99 0.99IS integration 4.57 0.062 0.88 0.77IS structure 4.32 0.077 1.09 1.18IS competency 4.46 0.068 0.96 0.93

Table VI.Descriptive statistics:

technological variables

Items Mean SE SD Var.

System quality 4.75 0.061 0.87 0.75Information quality 4.61 0.054 0.77 0.59Perceived usefulness 4.93 0.056 0.79 0.63Overall satisfaction 4.72 0.059 0.83 0.7

Table IV.Descriptive statistics:information systems

success factors

Items Perceived usefulness Information quality System quality User satisfaction

Perceived usefulness 1.000Information quality 0.788 * 1.000System quality 0.750 * 0.677 * 1.000User satisfaction 0.705 * 0.669 * 0.619 * 1.000

Note: *Correlation is significant at 0.01

Table V.Correlation analysis

between is successfactors

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In general, the users perceived that the IS facilities provided by their agencies weresatisfactory. The IS facilities include infrastructure components such as availabilityof computers and other equipments, and possibly a reliable networking system. Theabove average mean value (4.68) indicates that the Malaysian Government hadprovided adequate facilities to the agencies. This may be as a result of the budgetincrease in the provision of IT infrastructure and facilities during the annual budgetreview in the Eighth Malaysian Plan.

Based on the result, most users perceived that the technical support given to themwere sufficient. User support reflects the support given to staff using IS applications.The relatively high-mean value (4.58) implies that the Malaysian Governmentagencies, through the technical services divisions, had provided sufficient technicalsupports to the users.

The result also indicates that there has been a well integrated system in place withinthe e-government system in Malaysia. This also implies that information and resourceswithin and between the government agencies are effectively shared. The mean scorevalue indicates that the integration within the public sector agencies in Malaysia isabove the average standard, thus implicates that the system integration within theagencies are well developed and would, therefore, facilitate efficient and effectivecommunication within the e-government agencies.

The fourth dimension of technological context is IS diffusion. This trait involves thelevel of provision of IS facilities and support provided. Among the five technologicalfactors used in the study, IS diffusion has the smallest mean value (4.3). The value mayindicate that in the public sector, a centralized IS structure was more preferable by theusers than a decentralized IS structure.

The fifth dimension investigated was the IS competency. IS competency assessedthe technical skills level of IS staff. The mean value of 4.46 indicates that overall theusers were mostly satisfied with the competency of the technical staff. The value alsoimplies that, in general, the e-government agencies in Malaysia had an adequateteam of competent IS professionals. By nature, the IS professional are responsible tomost of the e-government projects implementation in the government agencies. In thiscase, the high-competency level in the Malaysian e-government agencies may be due tothe trainings provided to the IS personnel prior to the system implementation exercise,or the continuing professional education privileges given to the staffs.

Relationship between technological factors and IS successThe main objective of the study is to investigate the relationship between thetechnological factors and IS success factors. As noted previously, five technologicalfactors have been identified to be included in the study. The factors are IS facilities, IScompetency, IS structure, IS integration, and user support. Table VII shows the resultsof the Pearson correlation analysis conducted on the relationship between the fivetechnological factors and the four IS success dimension studied. A summated scale ofIS success was calculated by averaging the mean of the four IS success dimensionsof the study. The results showed (Table VII) that the technological factors aresignificantly correlated with the four summated IS success dimensions.

The results of the correlation analysis above, has therefore, supported all thehypotheses tested in the study. H1 was supported indicating a positive significantrelationship between IS facilities and IS success. The findings are consistent with other

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studies (Cahill et al., 1990; Cragg and King, 1993; Saunders and Jones, 1992; Grover, 1993;King and Teo, 1994; Whyte and Bytheway, 1996). The outcome suggests that availabilityof hardware and software resources has significant impact on system success.

The H2 was also supported, indicating that higher level of IS competency leads tohigher degree of satisfaction in system quality, information quality, system quality andoverall user satisfaction. The results are incongruent with previous study by Ang et al.(2001), however, the findings are consistent with other related studies (Cahill et al., 1990;Whyte and Bytheway, 1996; King and Teo, 1994; Saunders and Jones, 1992). The resultssuggest that having competent in-house IS personnel are crucial to ensure systemsimplementation success. The IS personnel are expected to have the appropriate skillsand expertise to resolve the technological issues faced by the end-users.

The results also supported H3, implying that higher level of IS integration leads tohigher levels of perception towards the four IS success dimensions. The results areconsistent with studies by Saunders and Jones (1992) and Whyte and Bytheway (1996).The evidence may suggest that a well integrated EG system is critical in systemssuccess.

H4 was also supported indicating that user support is positively and significantlyrelated to IS success dimensions. The findings are consistent with studies by Miraniand King (1994), Vijayaraman and Ramakrishna (1990), Bergeron et al. (1990),Buyukkurt and Vass (1993) and Igbaria et al. (1997). The positive outcome may be dueto the implementation of the e-government systems that needs to be maintained,monitored and supported from time to time.

The last hypothesis (H5) was also supported. The results indicate that adecentralized IS structure is significantly related with system quality, informationquality, perceived usefulness and user satisfaction. Decentralization is indeed animportant contributor of IS success in the context of Malaysian e-government system.

Further analyses using a stepwise regression analysis on the data, indicates thatIS facilities and IS competency were the significant predictors of IS success,followed by IS integration (Table VIII). This suggests that the three factors, IScompetency, IS facilities and IS integration were dominant technological factorsin influencing IS success. The results implied that having competent IS professional isone of the main concerns in ensuring system success. Trained IS personnel arecritically needed in solving the technical problems faced during IS implementationperiod. This finding is in line with studies by Byrd and Turner (2001) and Byrd andDavidson (2003).

ItemsPerceivedusefulness

Informationquality

Systemquality

Overallsatisfaction

ISsuccess

IS facilities 0.575 * 0.620 * 0.528 * 0.645 * 0.672 *

User support 0.525 * 0.540 * 0.496 * 0.629 * 0.625 *

IS integration 0.505 * 0.587 * 0.529 * 0.644 * 0.642 *

IS structure 0.288 * 0.305 * 0.334 * 0.313 * 0.336 *

IS competency 0.577 * 0.643 * 0.548 * 0.618 * 0.675 *

Note: *Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)

Table VII.Correlation analysis

between technologicalvariables and IS success

dimensions

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Another equally important attribute is the availability of adequate facilities andinfrastructure in promoting project implementation success, in this case, the EGproject. The findings support studies by Grover (1993), Byrd et al. (1995) and Wixomand Watson (2001). Another significant attribute found was IS integration. Theattribute was one of the significant predictor of IS success mainly maybe due to thenature of EG environment setup. The systems in the EG agencies are generally eitherinternally or externally integrated to one another. The systems are designed, in such away that they can be shared with other agencies as well as within the agencies. Thus,the results implied that systems success is also well depend on the implementation ofsystems integration success in the agencies.

ConclusionThe Malaysian e-government project is still considered as new in terms of itsimplementation and applications. However, the results of the survey have indicatedthat the implementation and applications of such system were quite successful. All ofthe IS success dimensions measured namely system quality, information quality,perceived usefulness, and overall satisfaction were rated highly by the participants ofthe study. The high-mean scores for all the technological factors measured alsoindicates that the e-government projects in Malaysia are characterized by having goodsupport on IT facilities and infrastructures, good support from the IT service staff,highly competent people in the IS team, and a system that is well integrated.

In addition, the results of this study should contribute greatly to the e-governmentpolicy makers and public agency managers in ensuring the success of thee-government systems. More directive measures and precautions can be taken toensure better return rate of investment (ROI) on the various e-government projects. TheROI should be a major concern due to huge monetary figures involved on various ISprojects. This study should lead to such recommendation where all the technologicalfactors studied, be taken into considerations whenever an e-government project is to beimplemented.

This study is subjected to various limitations. Methodologically, this study does notallow for more elaborative understanding of the Malaysian e-government system as acase study can. Further, analysis by going back to the field may elaborate further onhow the Malaysian Government achieve the IS success in order to be helpful to theproviders of the future e-government projects. In addition, success is a function ofmany contributing factors. This implies that technological factor alone may not besufficient as a contributor of IS success. Therefore, examinations of other factors in a

Coefficientsa

Unstandardized Standardized Coefficients CoefficientsModel B Std. Error b t Sig.

(Constant) 1.713 0.200 8.548 0.000IS competency 0.237 0.053 0.318 4.480 0.000IS facilities 0.257 0.056 0.318 4.565 0.000IS integration 0.172 0.058 0.210 2.937 0.000

Note: aDependent variable: IS success

Table VIII.Stepwise regressionanalysis of technologicalfactors on IS success

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single or separate study may be deemed as necessary. Further research should alsolook into other dependent variable of IS success such as net benefits as proposed bySeddon (1997) and DeLone and McLean (2003). The interpretation of result should onlybe confined to the Malaysian e-government setting. Similar studies may be conductedin different settings.

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Further reading

Bryman, A. and Cramer, D. (2001), Quantitative Data Analysis with SPSS Release 10 forWindows: A Guide for Social Scientists, Routledge, London.

Swain, J.W., White, J.D. and Hubbert, E.D. (1995), “Issues in public management informationsystems”, American Review of Public Administration, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 279-96.

Corresponding authorRamlah Hussein can be contacted at: ramlah@iiu.edu.my

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