Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
significantly faster, at lower cost, and of a higher quality. On the other hand, Tse et al
.,
(1995)
in an internal survey of Hong Kong University staff, experienced a much lower return rate
for email surveys (6%) compared with conventional mail (27%), that they attribute to the
possibility of participant identification with email. Comley (1996) found comparable response
rates from the two methods. Comley also indicated that electronic data collection methods
are often self-selecting, due to recipients irregularly checking email messages, and conse-
quently, have the potential to introduce bias. He pointed out, however, that although this
is a problem for representative samples, it is less of a problem for targeted groups, as in the
case of the present research.
The questionnaire was set up using Microsoft FrontPage 2000. Data were captured
using Microsoft Access 2000. Electronic surveys have the advantage of being pre-coded and
free of ambiguity of response in that only one response per item can be selected. They have
the disadvantage that they risk missing those who do not have access to computers and the
Web. This was not seen to be a problem for the group being surveyed.
During the first half of 2001, invitations to participate were sent by email to 1008 IS
professionals throughout Australia who had attended job fairs in the previous 12 months.
Twenty-eight unusable responses were eliminated from the analysis. A total of 136 usable
replies were received, and this represented an overall response rate of 13.5% — acceptable
for unsolicited surveys of this type but lower than was hoped for. Analysis of the data was
carried out using SPSS R10. A similar questionnaire was also sent to 2000 IS decision makers.
A total of 137 usable returns were received, along with 241 failed deliveries, giving a 7.8%
effective return.
RESULTS
Respondent Client Contact
Respondents were classified into one of two groups, depending on the likely level of
“people contact” they normally encounter in their job. This was selected from the principal
work function and was classified higher or lower people contact. Table 2 shows the
distributions by the respondent's principal work function and their perceived level of people
contact in their work.
A review of Table 2 indicates that roles involving higher contact with people account
for 56% of the responses, with roles involving lower personal contact with users at 44%. As
the Web development role is arguably a role involving higher client contact, the percentage
of roles involving lower people contact would decline to only 35%, with those requiring higher
contact growing to 64%. Either view is consistent with the view expressed by Ang (1992),
that the importance of technology-oriented roles would decline, while roles involving client
interaction would grow in importance, a view supported by the data in Table 1.
Respondent Organizational Level
Table 3
shows the position occupied by the IT/IS respondent from the employer group.
The job titles represented in Table 3 indicate that the majority of respondents were in a
position to appoint or direct the activities of IS staff.
