Critical success factors of decision support systems: An experimental study

Many factors affecting successful implementation of decision support systems have been identified in previous research. However, we still have little knowledge of both the relative importance of those factors and the mechanism by which they affect system usage. This paper proposes a framework, based on Simons three-stage decision process model and Fishbein s intention-behavior model, to integrate those factors and describe the decision process of system adoption. An experiment was conducted to investigate the relative importance of the factors. The results indicated that quality of the system was the most critical factor. Among the factors constituting the quality of the system; the accuracy of the model was the most critical factor affecting decision performance; and the representation format was the most critical factor affecting user attitude. The proposed framework, that applies the Fishbein model to interpret system usage behavior, was partially supported by the research results. User attitude and normative motivation were good predictors for decision performance. However, no significant correlation between system usage and user attitude or normative motivation was found.