| User participation research in the MIS field was derived from participative decision-making theories, which were categorized into three types: cognitive, affective, and contingency models. However, past research in user participation focused heavily on the latter two models, which resulted in two research gaps: (a) little research investigated different kinds of user participation's impact other than user satisfaction, and (b) the knowledge aspects in systems development were downplayed. Included in this dissertation are three research initiatives, which work together to fill these research gaps by addressing the types of impact on user participation and investigating the roles of users' knowledge. The first research initiative qualitatively explores the effects of user participation and shows the impact of certain aspects of quality of an IS, developer's knowledge, and user acceptance. Through qualitative lenses, the second reports systems developers' views on problems encountered during system development, when involved users lacked certain kinds of knowledge that the developers needed, and explains the roles of each type of user knowledge in systems development. Based on communication competence theories, the third initiative tests the effects of certain users' characteristics on information quality. Results show support for the positive impact of user participation on information quality and statistically prove that users' job experiences negatively moderate the relationship, while modeling cognition positively moderates it. The results of these three research initiatives can open up avenues for the selection of representative users in systems development projects. |
