Doing it Right?
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Doing it Right? - a survej.' of the use ofExecutive Information Systems in practice
Xianzhong Xu, Brian Lehaney and Steve Clarke Methodology
The results o/a surrei of UIiesrcu/ices is used lo suggerl 1/ial (en/ia/focus of EIS design and iniplernenlalion should he
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empirical examination of UK executives' concern of the EIS application was conducted Fhe sample through a multi-industry survey.
eiwironmenlal strategic
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iiifoiîiiation.
companies were drawn from the FAI\IE database by speeifying 'industry activity' to be computing, electronics, food, chemicals, and transport, so that a wide spread of varied activities were sampled, rather than just obvious targets.
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An amalgamation of views suggests that an a widelyaccepted view of an Executive Information System (EIS) may be along the lines of: computer-based information system, designed to provide senior managers access to internal and external information that is relevant to management activities
and decision making
Firms employing over 100 people were selected, and this gave a potential sample frame of 1645 companies. The contacts sought were either the managing director or the chief executive. Duplicated companies and directors were removed, leaving 1518 addressees.
(cg Millet and Mawhinney,
1992; Nord and Nord, 1995; Elam and Leidner, 1995). The primary purpose of implementing EIS is to improve strategic information available to the top management team (Rockart and De Long, 1988).
The questionnaire was posted in two stages. First,
1518 questionnaires were mailed to the named Whilst the foregoing definition and purpose provide
addressee of each selected company with a covering letter in which confidentiality was assured. The
useful starting points, there may he a wide gap between these, and what happens in practice,
response was disappointing, as only 80 usable questionnaires were returned (plus 45 null
because the functions of EIS have not been agreed in a top down fashion by systems designers and end users, but instead they have evolved in an ad hoe
responses). After five weeks, follow-up letters were
posted with another copy of the same questionnaire
fashion over the last twenty years.
to the companies, which had not yet responded. This resulted in a further 75 valid responses, and 42 more null responses. In total, 155 valid responses were returned (lO.20/o). Although still disappointing, it is a useful sample, and the response rate may
There have been reports of failures of EIS in practice (Watson and Glover, 1 989; Wheeler, Chang and Thomas, 1993; Rainer and Watson, 1995; Lehaney et al, 1999). It appears that most
of the target group (chief executives and managing directors), who may be reflect characteristics
barely reached beyond middle management, and have not penetrated top EIS
have
unlikely to spend time on unsolicited material.
management to any significant extent (Frolick, 1994). In a
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