| Abstract: | A considerable number of studies aimed at identifying IS management issues have been carried out in the U.S. Yet few similar international studies have been conducted. IS management issues in other countries are very likely to vary from those in the U.S. due to factors such as availability of information technology (IT) personnel, national policies, level of IT sophistication, vendor support, and technology awareness (Cash et al., 1992). Therefore, IT international issues cannot be considered as "... a replication of American research in a different country" (Ives and Jarvenpaa, 1991, p. 35). This dissertation aims at identifying the key IS management issues in three Central American countries--Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Panama--and analyzing the similarities and differences in importance for these issues among the countries studied and other countries in which similar studies have been conducted. The data for this study was collected through a field survey. A two-phase methodology was employed. In the first phase, a questionnaire was used to obtain from IS managers their opinion about the importance of the IS issues in each of the three countries. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews with several individuals were conducted to clarify issues. Useful data were obtained from Costa Rica and Guatemala. Similar to other studies, we found that the importance of the IS management issues varied according to firm characteristics or features of the IS function internal to the firm. We also discovered considerable agreement in the importance of the issues for the two Central American countries. However, we found that the key issues in these two developing countries clearly differed from those reported in two more developed countries (Australia and the U.S.). A correspondence analysis was used to classify the issues into three groups: issues particularly important to Costa Rica and Guatemala, issues particularly important to Australia and the U.S., and issues commonly important to the four countries. Based on the IT assimilation framework proposed in this dissertation, we concluded that Costa Rica and Guatemala lag behind Australia and the U.S. in terms of IT assimilation. Implications of this research for IS researchers, IS practitioners, and national authorities are provided in this regard. |
|---|