Critical success factors revisited: success and failure cases of information systems for senior executives

Ž . The literature suggests the existence of critical success factors CSFs for the development of information systems that support senior executives. Our study of six organizations gives evidence for this notion of CSFs. The study further shows an interesting pattern, namely that companies either Aget it rightB, and essentially succeed on all CSFs, or Aget it completely wrongB, that is, fall short on each of the CSFs. Among the six cases for which data were collected through in-depth interviews with company executives, three organizations seemed to manage all the CSFs properly, while two others managed all CSFs poorly. Only one organization showed a mixed scorecard, managing some factors well and some not so well. At the completion of the study, this organization could neither be judged as a success, nor as a failure. This dichotomy between success and failure cases suggests the existence of an even smaller set of Ameta-successB factors. Based on our findings, we speculate that these Ameta-successB factors are AchampionshipB, Aavailability of resourcesB, and Alink to organization objectivesB. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.