Use Of Non-Financial Measures In Information Technology Decision Making: A Design Research Study Of Learning Management System (LMS) Decision Making In Universities

Implementing Learning Management Systems (LMS) in universities is becoming one of the most critical decisions in higher education environment as they could yield long term benefit particularly in terms of enhancing the quality of teaching and learning processes and gaining competitive positions. Like IT and IS investment in other sectors generally, there is a need to develop a more comprehensive and effective model that really articulates the value from IT investment, to assist better decision making processes. Researchers have suggested that IT investment decision making models that are based primarily on monetary evaluation are inadequate because the value of IT investment is mostly indirect and intangible in nature. This study investigates the decision making models that are used to decide on the technology to invest, focusing on the importance of non-financial value to be incorporated in the IT investment decision making models. It proposes a model for LMS decision making, which integrates the Information Technology Balanced Scorecard (ITBSC) framework and Murphy’s (2002) “five pillars of benefit realization”. Six perspectives are derived from this integration, which are direct payback, business process, users, learning and growth, IT architecture and infrastructure, and risk and uncertainty perspectives. Keyword: Learning Management System, IT/IS investments, IT value, non-financial measure. 1 Khairudin: Use Of Non-Financial Measures In Information Technology Decision Published by AIS Electronic Library (AISeL), 2011