A senior executive end-user framework

Senior executives make decisions about their organization's information technology (IT) budgets that often involve substantial expenditure. Yet, in terms of their own competence in using IT, there is evidence to suggest that they may not be the best members of the organization to make such decisions. This paper reports on a study of 85 senior executives across 16 large organizations and the depth and breath of applications these executives use to support them at an individual level. The research design and methodologies were based on the principles of grounded theory. The primary source of data collection was in-depth interviews. A number of end-user frameworks have been developed by previous authors; however, most are more pertinent to middle and junior managers. Based on the analysis of the data from this study an end-user framework is proposed that is more appropriate for senior executives.