Determinants of user participation: a Finnish survey JUHANI IIVARI² and MAGID IGBARIA ²Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 333, SF-90571 Oulu, Finland, email iivari@ rieska.oulu.® Program in Information Science, Claremont Graduate School, 130 East 9th Street, Claremont, CA 91711, U.S.A., email igbariam@ cgs.edu Abstract. The relationship between user participation and information systems success has intrigued researchers for two decades. Despite this history there is minimal research on the antecedents of user participation. The tenet of the present paper is that the conditions of user participation are essentially changing. Especially, the European tradition of user participa- tion has focused on blue collar workers rather than profes- sionals and managers. Users are normally assumed to be computer illiterate. The North American tradition has almost exclusively focused on the impact of user participation on information systems success. The present paper examined the signi®cance of organizational level of users, their task variety and computer experience as determinants of user participation including age, gender, education, computer training, organiza- tional tenure and job tenure as control variables. The three determinants were found to have a signi®cant positive eŒect on user participation, computer experience emerging as the most dominant factor. Gender, education and computer training were discovered to have signi®cant eŒects mediated by organizational level, task variety and computer experience. 1. Introduction User participation is generally considered to be critical to information systems (IS) implementation and success (Hartwick and Barki 1994, Ives and Olson 1984, Igbaria and Guimareas 1994, Kappelman and McLean 1991, McKeen et al . 1994, Pettingell et al . 1988). Ives and Olson (1984) reviewed past research in user participation and concluded that `The bene®ts of user involvement have not been strongly demonstrated. 1 Additionally, a meta analysis conducted to examine the relationship between user participation and MIS success (Pettingell et al . 1988) concluded that the variables are positively but not strongly correlated. Hawk and Aldag (1990) furthermore, point out that the measurement bias may have overstated the bene®ts of user participation. Ives and Olson (1984) propose that more attention should be paid to the antecedents of user participation such as the functional area of the user, previous experience of the user with information systems, attitude of the designer about user participation, functional level of the user, degree of expected use of the information system. Anderson (1985) claims that more consideration should be given to contextual aspects such as users’ knowledge and experience in IS, the structure of applications and tasks to be supported, the change introduced by the system, management’s support for user participation and project leaders’ commitment to and skill in it, users’ possibility to aŒect outcomes, the acceptability of the time delays associated with user participation, and users’ willingness to participate. The recent review (McKeen et al . 1994) of contingency research on user participation shows that this recom- mendation has not had much in¯uence. It seems that users are treated as a uniform population who are assumed to have equal expertise and willingness to participate. A central concern in scienti®c research is external validity and `a key dimension of external validity is international’ (Rosenzweig 1994: 28). Hofstede (1991, 1994) recognizes that many popular management and motivation theories such as Herzberg’s two-factor theory (Herzberg 1966), Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Maslow 1970) and McGregor’s theories of X and Y (McGreor 1960) re¯ect the North American culture and argues that their applicability in other cultures is questionable. A review of research on user participation (see section 2) indicates that quantitative empirical research within it has almost exclusively been conducted in North America. The applicability of this body of IS research ®ndings in other cultures is unknown. There has frequently been discussion about international generalizability, with particular attention paid to the BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, 1997, VOL. 16, NO. 2, 111 ± 121 0144-929X/97 $12.00 Ó 1997 Taylor & Francis Ltd.