Extending the story of IS success: a meta-analytic investigation of contingency factors at individual and organisational levels

ABSTRACT

In the last decade, a diverse array of information systems (IS) has emerged to help organisations achieve their performance goals. As a result, global spending on information technology (IT) has increased manifold. These developments have reopened the fundamental question of how IS success is shaped at the organisational level. Scholars and practitioners would also like to understand if, compared to the individual level, IS success patterns differ at the organisational level. The last meta-analysis of IS success was conducted nearly a decade ago and it could not examine IS success at the organisational level. There is also a need to gain a deeper understanding of key contingencies influencing success at the organisational level. Based on a comprehensive meta-analysis of research studies conducted in the last decade, we not only report how IS success patterns are shaped at the organisational level but also show how these patterns compare to success configurations at the individual level. Additionally, we conduct detailed multi-level meta-analyses of system complexity and user type as two key contingencies influencing success at both individual as well as organisational levels. Findings of our moderation analyses reveal distinct constructions of IS success across both levels.

KEYWORDS:

• DeLone and mclean model
• information systems success
• is success model
• meta-analysis

Author notes

1. For brevity purposes, DeLone and McLean (2003) model is referred to as IS success model or D&M model in this paper.

2. We thank one of the reviewers for this insightful observation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.