Perceived Importance of Systems Analysts' Job Skills, Roles, and Non-Salary Incentives

System analysts are service providers who are required to work closely with users for the purpose of defining, developing and implementing computer-based systems. Analysts and users in pdvate organizations may have different expectations and proficiencies than those in public organizations, in part due to the types of appli. cations required. Beliefs about how others are supposed to perform and what motivates them contribute to a variety of behavioral responses. Conflict between analysts and users may have sedous consequences that can be very costly, such as poorly developed systems, behavioral dysfunctions (e.g., mistrust, avoidance, rejection), and negative user satisfaction. An interesting research question is whether perceptual differences exist among systems analysts and users about how systems analysts perform their jobs, as well as whether the perceptions are the same for public and private organizaEons. In a survey of perceptual di#erences about job skills, job roles, and non-salary incentives of systems analysts, results from 872 questionnaires show that analysts and users differ significantly in their perceptions of skills and rolesfor systems analysts. Public and private systems analysts and users differ significantly on perceptions of all three measures. The results provide evidence that analysts, more so than users, recognize the importance of behavioral skills for effective development. This difference may be a major source of conflict, with users expecting analysts to exhibit technical ski/Is in situations where behavioral ski/Is are required. Public and private sector differences suggest that even Introduction System s development efforts depend to a large degree upon how well systems analysts and users work together (Kaiser and Bostrom, 1982). The relationship between analysts and users could translate directly to success or failure of major development projects (Lucas, 1975) and indirectly to job-related stress (Ivancevich, et al., t 983) and dissatisfaction (Woodruff, 1980). most critical stage for analyst and user interaction occurs in the problem definition and requirements stage (Land, 1982). Analysts and users typically work on requirements within a project team structure. Research evidence suggests that users should be actively involved during the initial phase of the development process to have successful implementation (Baroudi, et al., 1986; Ginzberg, 1981; Lucas, 1975; Welke and Konsynski, 1982). Without user involvement, there is a strong possibility that users would resist implementation efforts (Argyris, 1971; 1982) or even reject the imposed system (Bostrom and Heinen, 1977; Lucas, 1975; Markus, 1984). Problems that result from this interaction between these two diverse groups have been recognized widely and reseamhed. In its simplest formulation, the problem involves effective communication (Bostrom and Heinen, 1977; Cheney and Dickson, 1982; Cheney and Lyons, 1980; Doll and Ahmed, 1983; Guinan and Bostrom, 1986; Ives and Olson, 1984). In its more complex form, the problem involves conflict (Robey and Farrow, 1982), power (DeBrabander and Thiers, 1984; Olson and Ives, 1982), role playing (Goldstein and Rockart, 1984), productivity MIS Quarterly/June 1989 115 Systems Analysts’ SkJIIs, Roles, Incentives (Green, et al., 1985), design procedures (Boland, 1978), and the behavioral effects of satisfaction (Woodruff, 1980) and attitudes (Kaiser and Srini.vasan, 1982). A potential cause of some problems between the two groups could be attributed to perceptual differences. Sound theoretical models have been proposed that link perceptions of job tasks, cues from social interaction in performing job tasks, and affective and behavioral responses (Griffin, et al., 1987). Job characteristics could, be differentiated by the skills required to perform tasks, roles necessary to carry out tasks, and incentives (other than salary) for task performance. Individuals from one group, such as systems analysts, may perceive the job of systems analysis differently than individuals from another referent group, such as users. Gingras and McLean (1982) find significant perceptual differences between users and systems analysts with respect to their profiles of the users within a large firm. Perceptual differences, if they exist, could affect behavior. As Watson (1982) states: The evidence gathered to date strongly indicates that people tend to attribute more importance to traits than to situations and that this tendency holds regardless of whether they are analyzing their own or another’s behavior (p. 688). The analyst needs, certain technical and behavioral skills to conduct systems development (Vitalari, 1985). In the process of conducting systems development, the analyst will play several roles, each requiring a different behavioral set of actions and responses (Cheney and Lyons, 1980; Goldstein and Rockart, 1984). The motivation for undertaking systems tasks and preforming those tasks at some level of proficiency is related to incentives for doing the job. The skills, roles and non-salary incentives of analysts performing their job function, to a large degree, characterize the task environment of systems development. How analysts and users, as two different groups, perceive the task environment of systems analysts has not been addressed adequately in prior research. This study is concerned with perceptual differences of analysts and users about the skills, roles, and non-salary incentives of analysts performing their job function. 1 ̄A secondary research interest is the comparison of perceptions by analysts and users from public and private organizations to determine whether perceptual differences, if they exist, are dependent upon whether the organizations are public or private. Motivation for investigating sector differences stems from three observations. First, application programs in the public sector are principally either mandated or budgetary in nature. Pdvate sector applications are more diversified and include transformation processes and competitive analysis, which are largely excluded in the public sector. Second, the private sector user community generally includes more functional areas (such as research and development, marketing, distribution, and production) than the public sector. Third, systems analysts in the pdvate sector appear to have better training, salaries, and computer resources.