Major issues in SISP: Insights into the main reason of SISP failure

The ‘SISP community’ is an evolving environment, which generally learns from the past. However, the lesson that top management commitment is a key determinant of SISP success has not been learnt. Regardless of the industry type or size, a lack of real commitment from senior management is still the main reason for the SISP formulation and implementation failure. The study introduces the SISP Stakeholders’ Designation construct to analyze commitment and participation of the available SISP resources in the light of maximising success of SISP. Also the association between organisational learning and management commitment to SISP is examined. A postal survey of top management from 260 Australian companies revealed that obtaining high-level stakeholder engagement is critical to SISP success. The study presents optimal roles and level of engagement for the SISP Stakeholders’ Designation. It was found that if every managerial stakeholder’s designation is committed to SISP in all its phases it may result in wasting of valuable time and resources. The findings point to SISP learning reviews as a significant antecedent for managerial commitment to SISP.