Total Quality Management in Information Systems Development: Key Constructs and Relationships

Abstract:

The availability of high-quality software is critical for the effective use of information technology in organizations. Research in software quality has focused largely on the technical aspects of quality improvement, while limited attention has been paid to the organizational and sociobehavioral aspects of quality management. This study represents one effort at addressing this void in the information systems literature. The quality and systems development literatures are synthesized to develop eleven quality management constructs and two quality performance constructs. Scales for these constructs are empirically validated using data collected from a national survey of IS organizations. A LISREL framework is used to test the reliability and validity of the thirteen constructs. The results provide support for the reliability and validity of the constructs. A cluster analysis of the data was conducted to examine patterns of association between quality management practices and quality performance. The results suggest that higher levels of institutionalization of all quality management practices are associated with higher levels of quality performance. Our results also suggest that key factors that differentiated high-and low-quality performing IS units include senior management leadership, mechanisms to promote learning and the management infrastructure of the IS unit. Future research efforts directed at causally interrelating the quality management practices should lead to the development of a theory of quality management in systems development.

Key Words and Phrases:

• information systems management
• software quality
• systems development
• total quality management theory

Additional information

Notes on contributors

T Ravichandran

T. Ravichandran is an Assistant Professor in the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He received his doctorate from the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1996. He has a master’s degree in industrial and systems engineering from the National Productivity Council of India and a bachelor’s degree in production engineering from the University of Madras, India. His research interests include management of systems delivery, software quality and reusability, technology management, and organizational impacts of information technology. His research has been published or is forthcoming in Communications of the ACM, European Journal of Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, and the proceedings of several national and international conferences. He is a member of the Academy of Management, Association for Information Systems, Decision Sciences Institute and INFORMS.

Arun Rai

Arun Rai is an Associate Professor in the Electronic Commerce Institute at Georgia State University. He was a faculty member in the Department of Management at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale for seven years before joining Georgia State in the Fall of 1997. He received his Ph.D. from Kent State University in 1990. His present research interests include the diffusion, infusion, and impacts of information technology, emergent models of e-business, information technology design for information and knowledge management, and management of unstructured processes such as innovation, product development, decision making, and systems development. Dr. Rai has published articles in journals such as Annals of Operations Research, Accounting, Management and Information Technologies, Communications of the ACM, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Management Information Systems, Omega, and several others. He is an associate editor of MIS Quarterly and Information Resources Management Journal. He is a member of the Academy of Management, Association for Computing Machinery, Decision Sciences Institute, INFORMS, Beta Gamma Sigma and Phi Kappa Phi.