Managing information systems projects within state government: Factors critical for successful implementation.

摘要

The management literature contains a plethora of studies regarding project critical success factors. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the studies deal with private sector organizations or at best a mix of public and private sector organizations. Although there are many similarities between private and public sector organizations the organizations are, in many important and substantive ways quite different. For example, the primary objective of private sector organizations is to generate a profit or return to investors while public sector organizations, in their best sense, are driven to serve the public good. Given the unique qualitative characteristics of these entities and organizations, it would be naive to blindly apply private sector critical success factors to the public sector without empirical validation.; Using a survey research methodology, the study empirically tests the various factors proposed in the literature as important to information system implementation project success within the context of state governments. The following questions are placed in consideration: (1) Do the critical success factors identified in previous research apply to state government information system implementation projects? (2) What factors are perceived to be most important during each phase of a state government information system implementation project?; The findings at the overall project level support prior research that has identified ten critical success factors. Separate analyses based on the stage within a project life cycle, selected by survey respondents to focus their responses, offer support for many of the factors specified in prior efforts. However, the dominant factor rankings for each stage are dissimilar when comparing private sector entities with state government organizations. These empirical outcomes serve to provide insight into activities deemed as most important for project success when viewed from the perspective of experienced project managers. Recommendations are tendered for future research efforts.