A Three-Tier Technology Training Strategy in a Dynamic Business Environment

As end-user training becomes increasingly important in today’s technology-intensive business environment, progressive companies remain alert to find ways to provide their end users with timely training and resources. This paper describes an innovative training strategy adopted by one midsize organization to provide its end users with adequate, flexible, and responsive training. The paper then compares the three-tier strategy with other models described in technology training literature. Managers who supervise technology end users in organizations comparable to the one in the study may find the three-tier strategy workable and may want to use it in their own training programs to facilitate training and improve end-user skills. Researchers and scholars may find that the idea of three-tier training generates new opportunities for research.

A Framework for Cognitive Skill Acquisition and Spreadsheet Training

It is well documented that electronic spreadsheet models utilized in many professions to enhance decision-making frequently contain errors that have negative effects on the ultimate quality of decisions. Limited research has been published that systematically identifies potential reasons for the causes of these errors, and what procedures can be taken to minimize or eliminate them. Our research provides initial evidence concerning this problem area by investigating how several important cognitive skills are affected by formalized spreadsheet training. Results indicate that one cognitive skill, logical reasoning, significantly increases after a six-week training period. Importantly, the greater the increase in logical reasoning skill, the more effectively the subject performed developing competent spreadsheet models. These findings provide a meaningful step in more perceptibly understanding and defining important cognitive changes that occur in individuals as they undergo formalized spreadsheet development training. Further extensions of this research should more clearly refine our understanding of the cognitive changes that occur in spreadsheet developers and eventually cultivate the development of more efficient and effective training methods for spreadsheet model designers.

Knowledge Management through End User Developed Expert Systems

Knowledge is receiving recognition as a strategic force in organizations. Correspondingly, one form of knowledge capture and maintenance organizations are tempted to use is expert system design by end users. The chapter discusses difficulties associated with end-user development, both in terms of design quality and knowledge content. An analysis of 25 expert systems written by non-professional developers reveals significant quality and size limitations that indicate limited feasibility of end-user expert system development. Furthermore, the lack of design quality may not be easily compensated for by a “knowledge advantage” of the end users, as end users may have a performance advantage in using their knowledge, but not in “knowing” it. The chapter then offers suggestions for alternate forms of end-user oriented expert system development that considers end-user limitations and takes advantage of recent developments in information technology.

Using Cognitive Ability and Personality to Select Information Technology Professionals

In order to achieve competitive advantage, 21st century organizations will make substantial investments in information technology (IT). Effective human resource practices in the IT field will therefore be critical. We investigated the applicability of general mental ability and personality test scores in predicting high-performing IT professionals. Data collected from 94 information technology employees in a service industry firm were compared with supervisory ratings along four orthogonal criteria; technical proficiency, relationship management skills, adherence to documentation standards and requirements, and self-initiated professional development. Results were partially supportive of the hypotheses and provide impetus for further work investigating applications of these tests to predict programmer performance in staffing and selection processes.

A Dynamic Model of End-User Computing

Control is a major issue in end-user computing. The migration of responsibility, resources and authority from IT departments to user departments is frequently seen as a loss of power by the IT departments and an erosion of cost control by senior management. Reactions to this situation tend to focus on technology and formal control mechanisms. This chapter contrasts such an IT-oriented view with a proposed, alternative user-oriented view. An IT-oriented view of EUC focuses on the problems it causes, the technology it requires, the methods that should be used and the means of limiting, controlling and standardizing. A user-oriented view of EUC focuses on the problems it solves, the user’s task and the organizational environment. The chapter advocates a shift in EUC research away from the technology and the IT issues towards the political, social and cultural issues associated with the users. EUC problems are, in the main, organizational problems requiring a research approach which addresses dynamic issues emerging over a period of time. As a basis for such research, the chapter proposes a dynamic model for EUC in which the progression of EUC within an organization is visualized as a series of inference loops.

Effectiveness of Systems Analysis and Design Education

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study of student perceptions of the education and experiences of the Systems Analysis and Design (SA&D) course taught in the IS programs at academic institutions. An ex-ante and post hoc empirical study of student perceptions in the SA&D courses was conducted. The results indicate that after taking the SA&D course and working with a real-life project, students’ perceptions improved for the applicability of structured methodologies across industries, the importance of computer programming in systems analysis and design process, and the role of advanced technologies in SA&D. Respondents also perceived that when working as groups, SA&D team members did not do their fair share of the work. However, the importance of user involvement was recognized.

Attitude and Management Style Matter in IT Implementation

According to previous studies, a positive attitude towards information technology (IT) among small business owners appears to be a key factor in achieving high quality IT implementations. In an effort to extend this stream of research, case studies were conducted with small business owners. A surprising finding of this study was that high quality IT implementations resulted with owners who had either a positive or a negative attitude towards IT. Another finding was that these owners also all had an entrepreneurial, or shared, management style. By contrast, owners who had an uncertain attitude about IT uniformly practiced a traditional (non-entrepreneurial) management style. This group also uniformly had low quality IT implementations. It is proposed, based on case study data, that small business owners with an uncertain attitude towards IT might experience higher quality IT results in their organizations through practicing a more entrepreneurial, or shared, management style. The study provides insights for both computer specialists and small business owners planning IT implementations.

A Comparison of End User and Expert Systems Quality Assessments

Organizations rely heavily on applications developed by end users, yet lack of experience and training may compromise the ability of end users to make objective judgments about the quality of their applications. The study reported on in this chapter investigated the ability of end users to assess the quality of applications they develop. The results confirm that there are differences between the system quality assessments of end user developers and independent expert assessors. In particular, the results of this study suggest that end users with little experience may erroneously consider the applications they develop to be of high quality. Some implications of these results are discussed.

Personal and Situational Factors as Predictors of End User Performance

End-user computing (EUC) has the potential to enhance productivity. However, for this potential to be realized, end users must learn EUC skills and perform at high levels. Because of the significance of end user performance to organizations, it is important to uncover factors that influence end user performance. However, prior research has relied almost exclusively on person factors to predict end user performance even though several models suggest that both person and situational factors influence behavior and performance. This limitation of previous research was overcome by examining the influence of both person and situational factors on end user performance. The three person factors and four situational factors investigated in this study, together, explained almost 40% of the variance in end user performance. Suggestions to enhance end user performance are offered, and directions for future research are discussed.

The Roles of Computer Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancy in Influencing the Computer End-User's Organizational Commitment

The study uses data collected by a survey of computer-based medical information system end users in a large hospital in the southeastern United States. The theoretical model examined using this data links several antecedents to the end users’ organizational commitment, mediated by computer self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. These antecedents are past computer experience of the end user, computer staff support for the computer system, ease of system use, and the degree of system use (i.e., percentage of time the system is used by the end user). The empirical results indicate that past computer experience and the degree of system use positively influence the end user’s organizational commitment through both computer self-efficacy and outcome expectancy. These also show that computer staff support and ease of system use positively impact the end user’s organizational commitment through outcome expectancy. From these results, conclusions and implications for practicing managers are discussed.