Attribution Theory: A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Information Systems Success

Information systems research often employs user satisfaction with, use of, and perceived organizational benefits of, newly-developed systems as measures of information system success. Further, this stream of research attempts to associate these measures of success with a myriad of hypothesized determinants involving organizational, personal, task, and system characteristics, as well as characteristics of the implementation process. Initial research in this area was criticized for the dearth of theoretical underpinning employed. Subsequent to these criticisms, underlying theory from a variety of disciplines now guides much of this research. Of particular interest to this research effort are the tenets of a well-established theory in the area of social psychology-attribution theory. While attribution theory has been employed in some of the more recent works investigating factors related to information system success, none of these works simultaneously consider the theory’s information and motivational antecedents along with the success/failure nature of the system’s outcomes, users’ perceptions of the causes of the outcomes (attributions), and the reported level of user satisfaction with the system. In response, the current study develops a model for the simultaneous empirical examination of these issues by incorporating them into a behavioral decision making methodology administered to Professional MBA students. The study’s results support the relevance of attribution theory as a theoretical framework for understanding those factors determining users’ attributions for information system-related outcomes, as well as the influence of these attributions and the nature of the system outcome on the level of users’ satisfaction with the system.