Executive Information Systems and the Top-Officers' Roles: an exploratory study of user-behaviour model and lessons learnt

In recent years a number of organisations have implemented executive information systems (EIS) in order to improve the performance of their executives’ jobs. Although the use of EIS is important in executives’ work, the majority of executives are unwilling to use EIS applications because of their design flaws. By using social factors, habits and facilitation condition variables from Triandis’ framework, this paper extends the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to derive useful variables to address the problem of the low usage of EIS by executives. This paper reports on research in progress in Australia on the adoption and usage of EIS by executives. The preliminary results suggest that executives’ experiences in EIS positively relates to their experiences in computer-based information systems. The results also suggest there is a high degree of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use as well as positive attitudes towards using EIS. Further, the results suggest that executives consider social factors in using EIS in their work. Moreover, the results suggest that facilitating conditions such as EIS development process, EIS management process and organisational environment are strongly related to the adoption and usage of EIS by executives. Finally, the results suggest a higher degree of EIS usage by middle managers than top-level managers, which an EIS was meant to support.