Discriminative effect of user influence and user responsibility on information system development processes and project management

26 Context: User participation in information system (IS) development has received much research atten27 tion. However, prior empirical research regarding the effect of user participation on IS success is incon28 clusive. This might be because previous studies overlook the effect of the particular components of user 29 participation and other possible mediating factors. 30 Objective: The objective of this study is to empirically examine how user influence and user responsibility 31 affect IS project performance. We inspect whether user influence and user responsibility improve the 32 quality of the IS development process and in turn leads to project success, or if they have a direct positive 33 influence on project success. 34 Method: We conducted a survey of 151 IS project managers in order to understand the impact of user 35 influence and user responsibility on IS project performance. Regression analysis was conducted to assess 36 the relationship among user influence, user responsibility, organizational technology learning, project 37 control, user–developer interaction, and IS project management performance. 38 Results: This study shows that user responsibility and user influence have a positive effect on project per39 formance through the promotion of IS development processes as mediators, including organizational 40 technology learning, project control, and user–IS interaction. 41 Conclusion: Our results suggest that user responsibility and user influence respectively play an important 42 role in indirectly and directly impacting project management performance. Results of the analysis imply 43 that organizations and project managers should use both user participation and user influence to improve 44 processes performance, and in turn, increase project success. 45 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.