A Field Study of Organizational Factors Influencing DSS Success

A field study involving 124 organizations, and 378 DSS users, was conducted to ascertain the influence of the user’s task environment on DSS success. Three groups were analyzed in the study: managers, financial and planning analysts (FPA’s), and “others” who were predominantly management scientists or data processing analysts. The study focused on three factors discussed in the MIS literature as potential, but unsubstantiated contributors to DSS success: decision context (degree of problem structure), level of task interdependence (degree of interaction with others), and level of task constraints (degree of decision maker authority and autonomy). There was some evidence that the decision context and the level of task interdependence were moderately related to decision-making success for managers and others. There was very little support found to substantiate a relationship between the level of task constraints and DSS success for any group in the study. The results reaffirmed that the level of top management support, user training, and length of DSS use are important correlates of DSS success.