A Model for Measuring Geographic Information Systems Success

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have become a fact of our life as they are being used by more people and organizations for more complex decision problems than ever before. The use of GIS can achieve valuable benefits for individuals, organizations and society; however, the achievement of these benefits depends on the success of GIS. While information systems (IS) success models have received much attention among researchers, there is a general scarcity of research conducted to measure the GIS success. This paper proposes a success model for measuring GIS success by extending and modifying previous IS success models. The developed success model consists of two main levels: GIS project diffusion success, and GIS post-implementation success. The first level identifies the critical success factors (CSFs) that influence the success of GIS adoption at each stage of the diffusion process. The second level of the proposed model identifies and organizes the success dimensions (outcome measures) of GIS in temporal and causal relationships. In order to assess the relationships among the success dimensions, 11 hypotheses were tested. Data were collected through a questionnaire that was distributed to 252 GIS users/managers in Egypt and abroad. The empirical results support 6 hypotheses and reject 5 hypotheses.