SUCCESS OF DATA RESOURCE-MANAGEMENT IN DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENTS - AN EMPIRICAL-INVESTIGATION

The trend toward distributed processing has significantly increased th e awareness of data as a key corporate resource and underscored the im portance of its management. In spite of this, there is a lack of empir ical investigation of issues related to data resource management (DRM) in distributed processing environments. Being perhaps the first empir ical attempt, this exploratory study identifies four information syste ms (IS) variables related to DRM in a distributed environment. It also seeks to examine the notion of gestalt fit to describe the nature of the relationships among these variables. in addition, the study evalua tes whether internally congruent groups outperform their opposites in realizing DRM success. The results of cluster analysis support the vie w of gestalt fit by identifying five clusters. The results also sugges t that organizations represented by a well-blended configuration of hi gh intersite data dependence, high centralization of IS decisions, hig h concentration IS resources at the central site, and low DRM-related autonomy granted to local sites appear to realize a greater degree of DRM success than the other groups. The implications of the study are d iscussed, and further research directions are proposed.