DETERMINANTS OF USER PARTICIPATION - A FINNISH SURVEY

The relationship between user participation and information systems su ccess has intrigued researchers for two decades. Despite this history there is minimal research on the antecedents of user participation. Th e tenet of the present paper is that the conditions of user participat ion are essentially changing. Especially, the European tradition of us er participation has focused on blue collar workers rather than profes sionals and managers. Users are normally assumed to be computer illite rate. The North American tradition has almost exclusively focused on t he impact of user participation on information systems success. The pr esent paper examined the significance of organizational level of users , their task variety and computer experience as determinants of user p articipation including age, gender, education, computer training, orga nizational tenure and job tenure as control variables. The three deter minants were found to have a significant positive effect on user parti cipation, computer experience emerging as the most dominant factor. Ge nder, education and computer training were discovered to have signific ant effects mediated by organizational level, task variety and compute r experience.