BEYOND THE INFORMATION-CENTER - AN INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE END-USER COMPUTING SUPPORT FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES

Recent studies have shown that end-users may be dissatisfied with supp ort received from the centralized information center. While this has b een the predominant source of formal support in the past, contemporary studies have identified a more decentralized form of support: local M IS staff. A third popular support source for end-users is the informal network of friends and colleagues. The relative degree of support tha t end-users receive from each of these sources is not evident. The lac k of a reliable instrument to measure end-user support may-have contri buted to this absence of evidence. This paper presents an instrument t hat was designed to measure support from a set of diverse sources, suc h as the information center, local MIS staff, and informal sources. Th e instrument was pre-tested and refined prior to collecting data from 108 middle-level managers. The construct and convergent validities of the instrument appear to be strong. This instrument will be useful to researchers and practitioners who would like to identify support funct ions best provided by a specific support source. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sci ence B.V. All rights reserved.