Information Systems Contribution to Business Performance: a study of information systems executives' attitudes

A shift is occurring in the Information Systems (IS) paradigm towards integrating IS activities with business activities. To investigate this development further, the study examined business performance measurement frameworks, and adopted these in compiling IS effectiveness measures relevant to the business environment. The IS executives of Australia's 200 largest companies were surveyed to establish how important these IS effectiveness measures and the traditional IS efficiency measures are in reflecting IS performance. It was found that IS executives continue to focus on IS efficiency and rate internal-oriented IS effectiveness significantly higher than businessand finance-oriented IS effectiveness. The findings appear to indicate that IS executives at least in Australia are technology-oriented rather than business-performance-oriented in their attitudes to IS performance. In contrast, the finding that qualitative IS measures were regarded significantly more important than quantitative IS measures may indicate that they believe that many benefits of IS are intangible and strategic.