Factors affecting senior managers’ decisions when implementing Management Information Systems (MIS) in UK manufacturing organisations

Abstract

Management Information Systems (MIS) play an important role in all manufacturing organisations but specifically in the UK manufacturing context where the majority of organisations are still at early stages of implementation. Senior managers’ attitude toward MIS implementation is an important determinant of successful implementation which contributes to saving a large amount of money and time. Surprisingly, however, there is only limited research about the predictors of senior managers’ attitude toward MIS implementation. This research aims to address this gap by using the Upper Echelon Theory (UET) as the theoretical lens to investigate the predictors of senior managers’ attitude. According to UET, which was proposed by Hambrick and Mason (1984), senior managers make their strategic decisions based on their experiences, beliefs, and personality traits. Senior managers’ demographic characteristics including age, tenure, prior career experience, education background and their personality traits can be used as tools to measure their experiences and beliefs. A sequential mixed method data collection strategy including 400 surveys (Study 1), 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews (Study 2), and 96 surveys (Study 3), all from board level senior managers of UK manufacturing organisations, were used to collect data. The findings showed that senior managers’ tenure, career variety, holding at least a college degree, and prior involvement in IS projects have significant impact on their attitude toward MIS implementation. In the first study, senior managers’ personality traits was measured by positive self-image (Core Self-Evaluation scale). It is found that senior managers’ positive self-image is the strongest predictor of their attitude toward MIS implementation and their attitude mediates the relationship between their characteristics and their support toward MIS implementation. It is found that four of the elements of the Big Five i.e., Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Emotional stability have a significant impact on senior managers’ attitude toward MIS implementation. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness appear to be the personality constructs which most strongly and consistently have an impact on senior managers’ attitude toward implementation. Only Openness to experience appears not to have a significant impact on attitude. The findings also suggest that in presence of the Big Five, the impact of positive self-image (PSI) on senior managers’ attitude toward MIS implementation is substantially reduced. This could be explored further in future studies. Although PSI is not as commonly used as the Big Five, it is much shorter and therefore reduces completion time, practitioners are still able to use it to assess personality traits of senior managers in early stages of recruitment and selection process. These findings have significant implications for organisations appointing a board level senior manager or redeploying a current senior manager since the organisations can focus more particularly on the senior managers’ personality traits in their recruitment criteria. HR practitioners can use senior managers’ demographics i.e., tenure, highest level of education, career variety, prior involvement in IS projects and experiences as selection tools to guarantee future firm performance. This study helps to describe the types of senior managers who hold positive beliefs about MIS implementation. The manufacturing organisations could look for these traits as part of a broader selection process by using established Big Five selections tests. The results of the present study advance the Upper Echelon Theory and field of study by increasing the predictive power of senior managers’ attitude toward the MIS implementation model, while enabling researchers to have a better understanding of the decision making process of senior managers.