Effects of resource constraints on information technology implementation in small businesses

The information systems (IS) literature has identified many possible factors of information technology (IT) implementation success in small businesses. However, none has investigated the relative importance of these factors. Without knowing the relative importance of key factors, small businesses may be expending their limited resources and energy on less important factors which have limited contribution to IT implementation success. This paper investigates the relative importance of seven key factors including CEO involvement, user involvement, IS planning, IT investment, custom-developed applications, users’ IT knowledge, and external expertise on IT implementation success. The key factors were identified based on the resource constraints of small businesses, Attewell’s (1992) theory of lowering knowledge barrier, and the empirical literature on IT implementation in small businesses. The results show that the important factors include effective external expertise, adequate IT investment, high users’ IT knowledge, high user involvement, and high CEO involvement.

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