LIFE IN THE MIDDLE - AN ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION-CENTERS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THEIR MAJOR STAKEHOLDERS

Information Centers (ICs), in their mission of supporting end-user com puting, find themselves in the middle of two different constituencies, users and Information Systems (IS) managers. A conceptual model, base d on role theory, is presented here to explore the special challenges of ''life in the middle'', such as different expectations about the ro les that should be performed by IC professionals, different criteria f or evaluating their performance, and different perceptions of their su ccess. These special challenges were empirically studied through in-de pth interviews with users, IS Managers and IC Managers, in a random na tional sample of forty-seven Fortune 500 companies. The results indica te that, given the multiple expectations surrounding Information Cente rs, IC professionals need to be flexible in adopting different roles, skilled in coping with different sets of performance criteria, and kee nly aware of the highly subjective nature of the evaluations received from their diverse constituents.