Identification of Critical Success Factors (CSF) and their Relative Importance for Web-Based Information Systems Development

Today, a majority of information systems are being developed for Web environments. It is critical to understand the unique characteristics of Web-based information systems. The main objective of this study is to identify the relative importance of factors related to the development of Web-based information systems. To accomplish this, critical success factors (CSFs) for the development of Web-based applications were identified from the literature, and organized into two main dimensions and sub-dimensions. The relative importance of the dimensions was assessed through an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method. Data were obtained in Korea from 33 experienced IT professionals representing six organizations from three different industry sectors. Respondents provided information about the relative importance of dimensions in pair-wise comparisons. As a result of the AHP analysis, information properties were found to be more important than risk control. Within information properties dimension, integrity of information was found to be the most important sub-dimension. The authors’ analysis also revealed that there is an industry effect on the relative importance of the dimensions. The results appeared to be reasonable for each industry sector given its business characteristics and nature of customer interactions, contingent on industry sectors. Based on these results, a series of research questions are suggested for future studies. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-962-5.ch014