DETERMINANTS OF COMMITMENT TO INFORMATION-SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT - A LONGITUDINAL INVESTIGATION

Commitment to an information systems (IS) development project is widel y believed to affect the eventual success of the system. Problems aris ing from low commitment have also been described. However, there has b een little research on the factors that influence the level of commitm ent to an IS project. This paper provides some initial insights into t he determinants of commitment based on a longitudinal study of an IS p roject that was stopped and then restarted on several occasions over a 17-year period (1975-1992). The paper draws four types of determinant s - project, psychological, social, and structural - from the organiza tion behavior literature and uses them to explain six decisions that w ere made during the 17-year period. A comparison of these six decision s suggests that project determinants play a central role during the in itial commitment decision, but the other determinants assume greater i mportance in later stages. Moreover, it seems that in this case study, project and psychological determinants affected the decision to incre ase commitment, whereas social and structural determinants influenced the decision to withdraw commitment to the project. Some implications for practice and future research are examined.