Title: The conditional benefits of early user involvement at employee self-service applications in four Dutch ministries

Authors: Ronald Batenburg, Gerwin Koopman

Addresses: Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80089, 3508 TB Utrecht, The Netherlands. ' Syntess Software, P.O. Box 127, 4300 AC Zierikzee, The Netherlands

Abstract: User participation and user involvement is generally accepted as one of the important factors for IS success. In this paper, several types of early end-user involvement are distinguished and empirically explored through four case studies. The cases concern four Dutch governmental organisations (ministries) that have recently deployed an Employee Self-Service (ESS) application. Interviews were held with developers, project managers and users. It was found that the perceived success of the ESS-systems within the ministries is not directly related to the type or number of user involvement methods applied. Benefits of user participation are conditional, i.e., dependent on time- and culture-related factors. In particular, expectancy management about the project milestones is important, and so is the belief among employees that they can easily use the self-service applications without much support from the HR departments.

Keywords: user participation; early user involvement; employee self-service; ESS; deployment success; The Netherlands; information systems; end-user involvement; Dutch government; Dutch ministries; human resources; project management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2010.030627

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2010 Vol.5 No.2, pp.162 - 174

Published online: 27 Dec 2009 *

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