The Effect Mechanisms Of Top Management Support On Informatization Performance

Information technology turns tobeastrategic resource of enterprises,not only the technical tools to improve the efficiency of enterprises.There are many policies to improve the level of enterprises informatization,which are set up by the government.Under the influenceof the government and the practices,enterprises have carried out a variety of informatization construction activities.However,enterprise informatization projects present a high failure rate.A joint survey by McKinsey Co.and University of Oxford shows that 56%of IT projects are in lower efficiency than expected,and 14%of the project failures even endanger the survival ofwhole enterprises.In China,the level of enterprise informatization lags behind developed countries,andthe implementation of information systems is not optimistic.We can find that top management support is a key factor to the success of enterprise informatization by the theoretical researches and practical experiences.However,in the past researches on top management support,it is often regarded as one of the main factors which affect informatization construction,and at the same level of other factors.But,in fact,top managers can influence the cognitions and behaviors of other enterprise members by informatization adoption decisions and a series of informatization changes,and then affectthe success or failure of enterprise informatization.From informatization practice,we can find that it experiences three stages from top management support to informatization performance.Firstly,Top managers decide to use information system in enterprises,through the analysis of the internal and external environment.Secondly,top managers lead enterprise informatization changes and create a good atmosphere by strategic adjustment,management policies changes and technology improvement.Thirdly,informatization changes are carried out in the whole enterprise.At this stage,it is important that there is a good organizational communication atmosphere,which can effectively promote the implementation of informatizationpolicies and the application of information technology.Based on the analysis of acquisition process of information performance,this paper builds an effect mechanismof top management support oninformatization performance,and puts forward research hypotheses.This research mainly solves the topic how top management supportinfluences enterprise informatization performance.It includes three key issues:firstly,whethertop management support can influence the informatization changes,which includes informatization strategy,inforrmatization atmosphere and technology match;secondly,whether informatization strategy,informatization atmosphere and technology match can influence informatization performance;thirdly,whether organizational communication variable can play a moderating role between informatization changes and informatization performance.We use interviews method to understand the development of enterprise informatization projects,the tasks and roles of top managers,and the effects of information system.We find that top managers should undertake seven major tasks,which can be summarized into three categories:set informatization strategy and long-term goal,build up informatization management system and monitor its implementation,and promote the match degree between enterprise andteclmology.Then,analyze their primary jobs in the three functions.In informatization strategy aspects,top managers must set up a scientific strategic orientation and long-term goal,and they should make the stage goals according long-term goal to guide enterprise informatization.In informatization atmosphere aspects,they should pay more attention to training rules,motivation rules and resource support.In technology match aspects,they should care about the compatibility between information system and organization,and the match degree between technology and specific work task;the former is more concerned about organization changes,the latter is more concerned about technical operations.After theoretical research and interview,this research collects data by questionnaires,and gets 226 valid questionnaires.Then,use SPSS22.0 to analyze the valid data by descriptive statistics,validity test,reliability test,correlation test and multiple regression analysis.This research draws the following conclusions.Firstly,top management support significantly affects informatization changes,but there are great differences on the influence degree of different factors.The influence of top managers on organizational factors is greater than on technical factors.Especially,the impact on task/technology fit is far less than on other variables.To organizational factors,top managers affect informatization strategy more deeply than informatization policies and rules.This is mainly related to the work responsibilities and characteristics of top managers.Secondly,top management support can influence informatization performance through the effect of informatization changes.In another words,Informatization changes play a mediating role between top management support and informatization performance.From the organizational perspective,top managers' ideas and behaviors directly influence informatization changes,including informatization strategy,informatization atmosphere and technology match,which can affect enterprise informatizationperformance.From the individual perspective,top management support can influence the cognitions and motivations of employees.Of course,the effects are not from direct interaction between employees and top managers,but base on their judgments to the trend of informatization changes by understanding informatization strategy,management and technology policies.Then,they decide whether to use information technology actively.Using behaviors of employees are the premise to produce informationization performance.Therefore,from both the organizational level and individual level,top managers influence directly infomatization changes and then influence informatization performance indirectly.Thirdly,among the three dimensions of informatization changes,the impacts of informatization strategy and informatization atmosphere related factors on informatization performance are less than those of technology match.The two technology match factors influence informatization performance greatly,because they are the most direct influence factors to affect the adoption cognitions of employees.Employees adopting technology,and then producing using behaviors,are prerequisites of informatization performance.In addition,organization changesmore related to the vital interests of employees have greater effects on informatization performance.Comparing informatization strategy and informatization atmosphere,the latter influences informatization performance more deeply,because it is related to the specific management system,policy and resource support.The effect of incentive system on informatization performance is greater than training system,and the effect of resource support on informatization performance is not significant.The informatization strategy including two dimensions:strategic orientation and goal oriented.Enterprise employees arefocused on the goal orientationmore than strategic orientation,because they are more concerned about the integration of organization goals and personal goals.Last of all,organizational communication plays a moderating role between informatization changes and informatization performance.Organizational communication plays an important role in the process of information changes.A good communication atmosphere is conducive to the implementation of informatization projects.On one hand,under a good communication atmosphere,employees can understand the informatization changes better,and accept them more easily,so that informatization changes can be carried out more smoothly.On the other hand,a good communication atmosphere is conducive to the popularization of information technology in whole enterprises.Employees can know more about information technology,and study how to use it by formal and informal communication with other people.The main innovations of this research include four aspects as followings.Firstly,build the effect mechanism model of top management support on informatization performance.This research explores that the process of top management support affecting informatization performance in Chinese enterprises,analyzes management characteristics and technical characteristics at different stages and extracts the main factorsinfluencinginformatization changes.Onthese bases,build the theoretical model of effect mechanisms,which could enrich the researches in this field.Secondly,Top management support is the antecedent variable of informatization changes,rather than parallel relationship.Informatization changes variable plays a mediating role between top management support and informatization performance.Top management support is the dominant force in enterprises informatization changes,but most of existing researches simply regard it as one part of informatization changes.Informatization changes are the outward manifestation of top management support in enterprise practice,which can influence informatization performance directly,so informatization changes variable is the mediating variable between top management support and infonnatization performance.Thirdly,analyze the moderating role of organizational communication variable between informatization changes and informatization performance.This research confirms the roles of organizational communication in the implementation of information strategy and management rules.It can improve theoretical researches in organization behavior field.Fourthly,this research proves that top management support has a significant and direct impact on technology/task fit.Technology/task fit belongs to the operational level in enterprise informatization.Most scholars have found that top managers are mainly responsible for strategic level or management level,and would not affect the specific details of the work.Technology/task fit is one of the most important factors that affect informatization performance.The conclusion provides a new way to improve the technology/task fit.This research not only has theoretical significances,but also has high practical values.On one hand,it can help enterprises to build up scientific informatization rules and atmosphere.Enterprises can improve resource support and management reform support by enhancing top management involvement and top management participation.It can make informatization construction more smoothly.It is conductive to "top leaders' projects"and build informatization policies or rules,and so on.On the other hand,it is helpful to the introduction,development and application of information technology,and then enhances informatization performance.Enterprises can choose the more suitable technologies to improve success rate of introduction project,according to indexes of the compatibility between system and organization,and the match degree between technology and specific task.