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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter summarizes the recent approaches and practices on IS strong point assessment. Exploring the subject by considering the studies with several viewpoints like different stakeholders' perspectives, consumer satisfaction, and processes. Additionally, the assessment studies for current web-based information systems like e-business, and e-government are scrutinized. Researchers have pondered on different aspects of system information being assessed as product, process, service dimension, stakeholders, and user satisfaction. The most broad study on IS success assessment is DeLone and McLean’s IS success model (DeLone and McLean, 1992), which distinguishes the IS success portion under six dimensions building a theoretical model. The development of internet technologies, researchers has attempted to correct DeLone and McLean model to accommodate the effect of Internet by administering the same model to ebusiness and e-government environments with some conditioning. Various studies has proposed divers measures and steps pertaining to e-business and e-government applications each of which emphasizes on web-site evaluation, consumer satisfaction, firm strategy, and risk or service quality dimensions. Below sections, the concept of effectiveness, success and efficiency are discussed followed by the essays on these concepts. 2.1. IS Effectiveness Gross global information technology investment exceeded one trillion US dollars per year in 2001, and grows 10% each year (Seddon, Greaser and Willcocks, 2002). This high amount of expenditure brings the question if these systems provide sufficient advantage for firms’ and their competitiveness. To be outstanding in today’s coy markets, institutions try to minimize costs and thereby increase the value for money and capital gains (Kanungo, Duda and Srinivas, 1999). In this viewpoint, IS expenditure should be justified by analysing its importance to the organization. Therefore, evaluation of the information system (IS) has become a prominent research area over the past decades in view of effectiveness, efficiency and success. 2.1.1. Effectiveness, Efficiency and Success Various measures have been proposed to assess IS expenditure. In this view, different studies concentrate on concepts of efficiency, effectiveness or success as a measure. Various measures are interwoven creating inconclusiveness in the field. The ratio of output to input of any system is considered as efficiency. Its’ objectivity is producing much benefit with lesser cost, so its’ goal is on minimizing cost. Alternatively, effectiveness is defined as being effective; or the attribute of effectiveness. The influence on the environment is it concern, results caused by a system, thus has an external focus (Myers et al., 1997). Hamilton and Chervany used effectiveness as the masterpiece of organizational goals (Hamilton and Chervany, 1981). Claims have been made that effectiveness can be analysed in two forms; goal-centred view and system-resource view. The goal-centred view was concerned by assessing the organization with respect to its task objectives by finding the difference between performance and objectives. In system-resource view, the concern of effectiveness is resource viability. For the assessment of system effectiveness, these considerations should converge. It was stated that, IS provided information to boost organization in reaching to its goals, and could be checked from two perspectives; efficiency of IS resources utilization, and effectiveness of the IS to users in achieving organizational objectives. They claimed that to assess the IS goals, performance measures developed for both of the perspectives could be used. Fitzgerald emphasizes on completing tasks accurately, with minimal cost, is not a guarantee that those tasks are done satisfactorily. Thus, the use of efficiency as an assessment measure may not produce correct results since systems that may not provide cost savings can provide significant opportunities to organizations in the future (Fitzgerald, 1998). IS can be efficient if it support organization to actualize their goal accurately (Malik, 2001). Recent studies used efficiency as an IS evaluation measure, however it is replaced by effectiveness since IS systems are goal-oriented systems, thus its influence in the environment needs to be measured. Effective measures are relevant to organization performance with future dimension providing internal and external comparisons and commonality in various companies (Smith and McKeen, 1996). The accomplishment of an intended purpose is called success, and it correlated with the achievement of an intended or expected effect. It has an external focus like effectiveness. IS success measure is ambiguous to researchers, and its’ a controversial issues (Molla, 2001). In information systems context, success has been defined by DeLone and McLean and studied by many researchers. Measurement of IS success or effectiveness used interwoven in these studies, which is talked about as tedious task, since these systems are not isolated from the environment and have several interactions with different stakeholders having different expectations from those systems. Since these two terms have synonymous meaning, in this study, success and effectiveness are used interwoven. IS effectiveness assessment studies discovered can be refer to in two categories; studies performed for traditional ISs, and studies carried out for WIS assessment. The following sections detailed those studies. 2.2 Traditional IS Effectiveness Studies For the traditional IS studies, IS researchers have considered different aspects of the information systems being assessed as product, process, service dimension, stakeholders, and user satisfaction. The following sections will explore those studies in detail. DeLone and McLean’s IS Effectiveness Model Contribution that was considerable to this area was by DeLone and McLean’s study which proposed a comprehensive framework for IS success measurement (DeLone and McLean, 1992). DeLone and McLean specified six different dimensions of IS success; System Quality, Information Quality, Use, User Satisfaction, Individual Impact and Organizational Impact (D&M model). Studies examined was performed on measurement, and concluded that these studies are in line with some of the dimensions they proposed. Various studies used and supported the validity of D&M framework. Myers et al. added service quality and workgroup effect to D&M framework (Myers et al., 1997). Jennex, Olfman, Panthawani and Park applied D&M model to Organizational Memory Information systems by proposing some modifications specific to the context (Jennex, Olfman, Panthawi and Park, 1998). Malik proposed that IS effectiveness should be performed in an integrated approach considering product, process and environment views (Malik, 2001). Pitt, Watson and Kavan argued that IS effectiveness measures focus on product, and service dimension is ignored (Pitt, Watson and Kavan, 1995). They advocated modifying D&M model by adding a new dimension, service quality. They considered using the ServQual instrument, which has originally been used in the marketing area to measure the service quality. Seddon, Staples, Patnayakuni and Bowtell argued that D&M’s six success dimensions lack individual stakeholders’ interpretations of success, which is the dependent variable (Seddon, Staples, Patnayakuni and Bowtell, 1999). They also argue that since different systems may require different measurements for effectiveness, the system being evaluated must be considered. DeLone and McLean, in their 10-year update study (DeLone and McLean, 2003) evaluated the arguments against their six dimensions of IS success, and added a new item service quality to their framework. Iivari tested D&M model empirically, proposed using perceived system quality and perceived information quality instead of system use to measure user satisfaction with the system (Iivari, 2005). Chang and King suggested IS functional success evaluation in three dimensions; namely system performance, information effectiveness and service performance (Chang and King, 2005). They proposed functional score card composed of 18 factors in three dimensions, evaluated by IS managers and validated their results statistically. Similarly, Gable, Darshana and Chan reviewed D&M dimensions and modified it for Enterprise Systems omitting use construct, keeping its causal/process model of success, they added some new measures like customization, increased capacity, e-government and business process change and considered satisfaction as an overall measure of success (Gable, Darshana and Chan, 2003). They applied factor analysis to reduce measures number and validated it with a survey. Considering D&M model, Sabherwal, Jeyaraj and Chowa provided an IS theoretical model based on three constructs; context-related, user-related and IS success related (Sabherwal, Jeyaraj and Chowa, 2006). Meta-analysis and statistical analysis was applied to correlations between the constructs by reviewing various studies in this area. Peter, DeLone and McLean reviewed the literature and performed meta-analysis of the studies that partly or fully applied or discussed D&M model and elaborated which causal interactions of D&M model were supported by these studies (Peter, DeLone and McLean, 2008). They analyzed 90 studies citing D&M model, which is an evidence that D&M model has been a benchmark in IS success domain in understanding IS success and its complexity with a generic view. Özkan’s IS Effectiveness Model In her PhD study (Özkan, 2006) and her research paper (Özkan, Hackney and Bilgen, 2007), Özkan proposed a conceptual model and an assessment framework for IS effectiveness. In the studies, IS was conceptually modelled to consist of three interacting constructs: people, resources and services & benefits. Requirements for each construct and processes related to each construct were defined using Cobit/ITIL/CMM frameworks. All processes were evaluated according to the level of maturity, processes and three components of the model. The process-based objectives were checked in three case studies and interviews with stakeholders. In this model, processes were treated as equally imperative; regardless of the context of the system they were applied. Although, IS was considered as an open system having interaction with its environment, the internet effect was not considered in fallibly. Additionally, although some evaluation metrics were proposed, only qualitative methods were applied to assess the effectiveness. Stakeholders' Viewpoints in Effectiveness Assessment There are several studies in the literature that consider different stakeholders’ views in assessing IS success. Among them, management constitutes an important group since management has point of views related to business goals and strategies for a company. Ifinedo and Nahar examined top and middle level managers and compared their perceptions of IS success applying stakeholder theory (Ifinedo and Nahar, 2006). Critical success factors (CSFs) are considered as success criteria needed to be satisfied for system success (Poon and Wagner, 2001), but they have not been determined to be general in different organizations, business environment or culture. However, CSF’s are considered to be the key factors for a business to reach its goals (Lu, Huang and Heng, 2005). D&M opponents argued that it’s impossible to have a single measure for IS effectiveness, a high range of measures incorporating views of different stakeholders and the systems characteristics are needed (Seddon, Staples, Patnayakuni and Bowtell, 1998). In 2002 study, Seddon et al. interviewed 80 senior IT managers to find out how they evaluated their IT investments and they suggested two dimensional IS effectiveness matrix to include different stakeholders views and nature of the system (Seddon et al., 2002). IS success measurement provides a new insight for the matrix, considering IT application and stakeholder type, which is questionable since for a given stakeholder and IT application type, organizational context may not be applicable to the proposed measurement. Therefore, the organizational domain where the assessment is applied to should also be considered. Other Effectiveness Assessment Models Kanungo et al. considered six major planning objectives for an organization claiming effective planning results for IS (Kanungo et al., 1999). These objectives are: predicting future trends, improving systems integration, improving decision making, increasing user satisfaction, avoiding problem areas, improving resource allocation. Managers was also interviewed and more factors like improving speed of operations and control over system and system standardization, facilitating information retrieval, minimizing errors in functional areas. Interpretive structural modelling was used (ISM) to gain insight into the causal relationships between these factors. Applying MICMAC1 analysis they concluded that improving systems integration turns out to be the most important factor for effectiveness. Facilitating information retrieval, increased user satisfaction, improving quality of product/service and minimizing mistakes in functional areas are the other significant effectiveness factors. This model considers different stakeholder’s views like IS manager, CEO and users, thus incorporating both organizational goals and user satisfaction factors, therefore it can be considered as a comprehensive approach. However, concerns seem to be more on internal stakeholder’s perceptions. Suppliers’ and customers’ are not included in the model in views of the related supporting parties. Neglects has been placed on the effect of the interaction between firm’s IS and other parties IS systems on IS success. The act of doing something successfully in view of a recognized achievement is called Performance. Applying to IS area, performance is defined as “the interaction between a system and its environment to gain value and avoid loss”, (Whitworth, Cheikna and Whitworth, 2006). According to Whitworth et al., in nature every system has a boundary, internal structure, effectors (changes the environment), and a receptor (senses the environment) so as IS; each of these aspects has some functions referring to system dimensions, which can be expressed in different contexts with different terms meaning the same things (Whitworth et al., 2006). For example, considering IS boundary aspect, extendibility, security can be goals; for IS internal structure aspect, compliance and constancy can be considered; for IS effectors aspect, functionality and applicability are the factors; and for IS receptor aspect, confidentiality and privacy can be the factors. Based on these interactions and functions, Performance of any system can be considered. Improve in one dimension will not improve the overall system performance. They consider four levels for IS, mechanical, information, cognitive and social. Conceptual view of system performance is provided by the model without creating a framework that proposes measurement approach. In this panorama it is not clear whether proposed dimensions can be measured by qualitative or quantitative techniques. Cronholm and Goldkuhl discuss different strategies for IS evaluation (Cronholm and Goldkuhl, 2003). Three evaluation conducts was identify; namely goal-based, goal free and criteria- based evaluation according to the drives of the evaluation. They combine those strategies with the system type and propose six different ways for the evaluation. 2.3 Web-based IS Assessment Studies With internet and information technology emergence, many IS systems turned into WISs, enabling everyone to access it through multiple channels which transferred them into open systems. Necessity has created a new dynamic environment to look into the IS assessment topic through a new understanding. For the web-based IS assessment, the initial trend was to apply traditional IS conceptual models like D&M model to WISs. In that respect, researchers tried to modify D&M model to include the effect of Internet by adopting the same model specifically to e-business and e-government environments. The other studies proposed models for specific “e-“domains. The following sections discuss WIS evaluation studies in detail. E-Business Success Assessment With the advances of information technologies, the way of conducting business has also changed. Effective use of Internet technologies can provide competitive advantage, market penetration, innovation, technology transfer and even management competency (Torkzadeh and Dhillon, 2002). Internet has a broad aspect which can be used to reach large populations very easily. It basically changes the way the business is done. It can provide new business sectors; make firms to advertise their products and services fast, offer a flexible business environment and presents customization for end-users. These unique characteristics of WISs may require new metrics or at least careful evaluation of the existing ones (Straub, Hoffman, Weber and Steinfield, 2002). In this regard, there are several studies that aim to evaluate e-commerce system success and effectiveness. To be successful, organizations should have customer oriented businesses, and therefore success assessment should include the customer dimension. Keeney proposed focusing on the customers’ net value of the benefits and cost of both a product and the processes of finding, ordering, and receiving it (Keeney, 1999). Interviewing almost one hundred customers, data is collected about all the pros and cons of using Internet commerce that they experienced or envisioned. Using this data Keeney identifies two sets of objectives, namely means objectives, which helps businesses to provide what is important to customers and fundamental objectives that provide ends that a decision-maker may value in a given context. He argues that these objectives can be used designing an Internet commerce system for a business, creating and redesigning products, and increasing value to customers which may create the question: but to achieve these targets, should or could a company conduct this research for all of its products and services' Keeney enables the customization of objectives in terms of the type of the products or the services offered for Internet commerce (Keeney, 1999). However, considering the variety of products a company has, it would be inefficient or non-practical to run a research on customer values for each product/service a company sells. So, before conducting such a comprehensive research it may be necessary to identify the most value adding products for the company and optimize the number and the type of the products that will be considered. Torkzadeh and Dhillon used Keeney’s approach and proposed a model to measure means objectives and fundamental objectives to evaluate factors for Internet commerce (Torkzadeh and Dhillon, 2002). Then they re-examined and validated these two instruments empirically using more samples statistically (Torkzadeh, Chang and Dhillon, 2003). Early 90’s many business and start up companies was established via the internet and where introduced to the market also. No definitive business model was laid down and their focuses on future earnings potentials where via web site traffic, and earnings before interests (Carr, 2001). Internet provided easy access to consumers and was attractive, low barriers to entry to the market as stated in the interview with a business-strategies expert at Harvard Business School, Peter Coughlan in the article of Kharif (Kharif, 2000). Many investors were attracted by these companies thereby causing their stock values to upsurge with high demand and limited sources (Carr, 2001). Regrettably, this rise did not last long, and many of start-up companies started to close down their businesses. While dot-com companies were failing, some traditional companies who had brand recognition, purchasing power, cash flow, customer bases, and intimate knowledge started to market their products on the Internet (Kharif, 2000). According to the interview of Stone (Stone, 2000) with web strategy consultant P. Cohan, pure dot-com companies would be removed from the market and traditional companies would start benefiting from Internet. The dot-com bust shows that, using Internet as a marketing arena for businesses and reaching to customers easily is not enough to be successful; companies still need business strategies, well-established business models to maintain customer loyalty and to survive in the fast changing business environment. Lai and Wong surveyed e-commerce and non-e-commerce companies and compared their strategies for survival after 2001 dot-com bust (Lai and Wong, 2005). They considered four groups of strategies by interviews with executives; savings-related, structure-related, policy-related and marketing-related strategies and analyzed each companies focus on those strategies to survive. They mentioned that savings-related strategies were the most important for B2B and B2C companies whereas marketing related strategies were effective for non-e-commerce companies only. Generally, a company decides on its strategies by identifying and focusing on its critical success factors (CSF). While determining company strategies, much confident should not be placed on previous data because of inaccuracy for healthy results, because the environment in which the company runs its business changes continuously. For example, a strategy that worked successful well before the "2001 dot-com boost" may not work well in today’s environment therefore should not be put into consideration as a benchmark for recently operating companies. Additionally, strategies must be driven by analyzing various factors which should include past performances in the industry as well as views of the company’s stakeholders. Reviewing the IS success literature, Pather, Erwin and Remenyi proposed the concept of e-customer who interacts with the business website for some transaction, and created a model to evaluate e-commerce effectiveness based on combination of user satisfaction and service quality theories (Pather, Erwin and Remenyi, 2003). It is noticed that this model does not involves the integration of internal organizational factors such as production processes, stakeholders and also does not take into account the CSF’s. The fundamental D&M IS success model has also been an inspiration for ecommerce studies. Molla re-specified D&M model for e-commerce systems, by considering customer e-commerce satisfaction as a dependent variable (Molla, 2001). After their famous success model, DeLone and McLean discussed to adopt their model to e-commerce systems using their six dimensions, proposing new measures for each dimension (DeLone and McLean, 2004). Arguments was rendered that e-commerce measures should include net benefits measures but not surrogate measures like web site hits, which could be measured in individual, group, organizational and industry levels. E-commerce uses web technology extensively; a lot of attention was given on research on the success factors of the web sites. Trustworthiness is one of the attributes of a successful website, dependable and reliable transactions, and endeavour to attract customers by advertising, new product and services, and provide good after sales services (Liu and Arnett, 2000). Schonberg, Cofino, Hoch, Podlaseck and Spraragen discuss the best metrics to evaluate effectiveness of websites; two metrics are addressed: click through and look-to-buy metrics (Schonberg, Cofino, Hoch, Podlaseck and Spraragen, 2000). D’ambra and Rice study some factors for web performance measurement (D'ambra and Rice, 2001). Focus on website is one characteristic of these measures, the front office, ignoring the organizational work domain. This approach assesses the IS as isolated from the systems running in the organization. Back of the web site, the organizational elements that provide the business running like users, processes and their interactions cannot be ignored. Success of the web site or front office can be affected by these interactions, for example lower user satisfaction in the organization could result in ineffective processes and therefore failure of the business. Focusing only on the front office and disregarding the organizational domain may result in misevaluation of the system as a whole. An important dimension of e-commerce is consumer satisfaction; consumers must be satisfied with e-commerce systems to get more goods and services on-line. Determining the success and failure of e-commerce is an essential measure. (Schaupp, 2005). E-satisfaction has three dimensions; technology, shopping and product. The relationship between what the customer does & perceives and why the customer does it should be explored (Minocha et al., 2006). Not just customer interaction with the website and usability of the user interface design, but the overall experience (CX) and satisfaction a customer has when buying and using the product/service should be considered. According to Minocha et al. CX includes prior experiences, personal values, attitudes to technology and e-commerce, and preferences that shape the customer’s expectations (Minocha et al., 2006). Putting into consideration usability and user interface design is limiting, excluding social, organizational, and individual factors effecting CX. Cheung and Lee proposed a theoretical research framework for customer satisfaction with Internet shopping (Cheung and Lee, 2005). Key dimensions of information quality are considered, system quality, and service quality. Customer satisfaction is analyzed in two frameworks; end-user computing and ServQual. Lai proposed a framework for service quality and user satisfaction with e-business considering employee’s perceived service quality revising Servqual instrument for ebusiness context (Lai 2006). To have competitive advantage over Internet based businesses, alignment must be made between the company strategies and with e-commerce strategies. An integral part of the firm is by considering internet based e-commerce strategy (Auger, 2003). Auger searches for the relationship between Internet based e-commerce strategies; transaction and support strategy and firm’s differentiation strategies; price, image, support, design and quality. By employing questionnaires to several firms, Auger found that strong ties exists between these strategies, and using firm’s Internet based e-commerce strategy to create business strategy may establish a competitive advantage. It was noted that smaller firms uses Internet-based e-commerce transaction strategy to survive in the market. It can be concluded that, the level of integration between business processes and companies IS which also includes e-commerce infrastructure, will affect the aligning of business strategy and e-commerce strategy. Considering the assessment studies above, it can be concluded that, none of them provides a comprehensive approach to measure e-business success. Each proposed method focuses on specific success factors like strategy, customer satisfaction, service quality, leaving out the other factors which may be unique for the organization. Different stakeholders’ view should be taken into account to develop a comprehensive framework, company strategy, and relationships of WIS with other systems. E-Government Success Assessment Governmental organizations has been using internet, beside private companies, to provide services to citizens. Increased operational efficiency and better service quality to citizens can be provided by the internet (Gil-Garcia and Pardo, 2005); government has be unable to discover the benefits of internet due to lack of focus on organization but in technology, lack of competition force and doing the things from scratch (The Economist 2008). In order to have comparisons between different applications and benchmarking, e-government effectiveness should be measured to identify good practices and bad examples. Since it involves collaboration and communication between different stakeholders and integration of cross-agency business processes, a well-based theory is needed (Peters et al., 2004). However, the legal and political process involves is a complex process. Peters et al. examines available instruments to measure e-government effectiveness and concludes that they are not adequate to measure multi-service organizations, ignoring different stakeholder views, focusing only on front desk, based on a short-term approach (Peters et al., 2004). Similarly, Hu et al. compare measurement frameworks and conclude that these are one-sided, not objective, concerned only with quantifiable results (Hu et al., 2005). Therefore they suggest using D&M model for e-government success. However, this study does not provide success factors for D&M dimensions. Information qualities are the main focus of government administrations and do not consider the reorganization potential of communication and transaction processes (Becker, Niehaves, Algermissen, Delfman and Falk, 2004). Therefore, external perspective that deals with citizen’s business perception of e-government activities, evaluating web-portals; and internal perspectives that consider the internal self-assessment of local public administrations using questionnaires must be examined. Becker et al. suggests several success factors like organizational responsibility for e-government, e-government awareness, budgetary funding, and organizational change (Becker et al., 2004). They mention that to get important benefits, public services should be offered as e-services and instead of providing traditional public services, it is better to reorganize the underlying processes and organizational structure in the back office. However, such reorganization may not be possible because of country’s political regime. Therefore, the success of e-government factors must also include the country-based context. Siegfried, Grabow and Drüke propose that long term success is determined by many factors like organizational measures, strategic procedures, qualifications, communication, and partnerships; obtaining resources and provide 10 factors for successful e-government like guiding principles and strategy, organization, project and change management, applications, benefits and costs, legality, competence, motivation and qualification (Siegfried, Grabow and Drüke, 2003). In their 2006 study, Elpez and Fink claim that the success of an IS project depends on the stakeholders perceptions (Elpez and Fink, 2006). Supporting Seddon’s stakeholders view, they interviewed end-users, project managers, project sponsors, IT managers and CIO’s to find the most important IS success factors. Comparisons where made between the private and public sector and linked the public sector characteristics to IS success by providing a model based on meeting of user requirements, system usability and performance, information quality, use, user acceptance and IS ownership, interaction with IT infrastructure, expenditure control, accountability, long term perspective. Different from D&M model, this model takes into account the organizational characteristics. The possible causes of failure of e-government systems and provide success measures accordingly to identify them (Evangelidis, Akomode, Bendiab and Taylor, 2002). Evangelidis et al. identify risk categories in e-government into classes: technological and implementation risk factors, social and human risk factors, financial risk factors, legal risk factors. Using these risk factors they provide a checklist for success factors. Likewise, Gil-Garcia and Pardo consider e-government challenges and define success strategies for each challenge and examine four practitioner tools used for e-government guidance according to the strategies (GilGarcia and Pardo, 2005). They identify risks for e-government success which could change according to the environmental dynamics like government change with elections or change in regulations (Gil-Garcia and Pardo, 2005). Managing lots of companies with different characteristics is like managing a government. Unlike private organizations, in government, integration of various institutions’ IS system is much more difficult because of different characteristics of those institutions such as legislation, universities, culture, nature of transactions in each institution, variation in civil servants profiles etc. and so, success of a specific unit is impossible without the success of all other units. Website Assessment The interface quality of WIS interacting with users has also become a popular subject studied by many researchers. Schonberg et al. proposed to use click-through and look-to-buy metrics to evaluate website effectiveness (Schonberg et al., 2000). Park and Baek modified Servqual instrument for websites and applied Exploratory Factor analysis to find out the most important factors for web-site quality evaluation (Park and Baek, 2007). Aladwani and Palvia proposed a 25-item instrument to measure website quality and performed the empirical evaluation of a website (Aladwani and Palvia, 2002). Seethamraju validated this instrument with structural equation modelling and concluded that it was not comprehensive and did not reflect the website quality fully (Seethamraju, 2004). The quality of a website is a multi-dimensional subject and using a single instrument was difficult and in addition depending on the website objective, contributing factors such as quality and user satisfaction were different. Additionally, Loiacono, Watson and Goodhue created a tool WebQual with 12 dimensions and 36 factors to measure website quality by applying Technology Acceptance Model (Loiacono, Watson and Goodhue, 2007) which was applied by D’ambra to assess if a website satisfies the information needs (D'ambra, 2001). Liu and Arnett performed factor analysis to identify which measures were more important to measure success of websites (Liu and Arnett, 2000). These studies are valuable in their own ways, however focusing mostly on the static, front-office properties of web-based systems and neglecting the organizational back office issues. 2.4 Summary and Discussion In consideration of the above studies, it can be concluded that ISs are not easy to assess and there are many aspects to be considered in the assessment process. With internet technology emergence, it is now more difficult to measure IS effectiveness. Borderless, non-stop, flexible communication medium is provided by the internet. Companies engage in web-based business, they be accessible to people, market their products easily, minimize transaction costs, increase productivity, minimize procurement costs, lower the number of employees, and can gain competitive advantage with respect to traditionally run businesses. Similarly, with Internet, broad range of information can be quickly access, compare product prices, and shop by fast transactions, exchange views about products and services. So, a very advantageous environment to do business that is very appealing for many companies is provided by the internet. However, by reducing the barriers to entry to the market, competition is tougher in this new world. Therefore, assessing web-based information systems is more vital for organizations for survival and competitive advantage. The various IS success assessment proposals in the literature usually are not comprehensive focusing on some dimensions of IS construct. They are mostly theoretical studies, providing research infrastructures for the construct, concerned on what measures should be used for the assessment and so, far from providing a success measure with which the ISs can be compared. In consideration of the complexity of information systems, measuring their effectiveness in one dimension and defining a single metric for assessment is not realistic. Instead, IS effectiveness should be considered as a multi-dimensional entity. In this regard, Internet should be considered as an entity to be assessed and integrated to the system assessment. Consequently, application of traditional IS assessment methods to WIS domain is not suitable or does not capture all of the details of WIS success. DeLone and McLean’s comprehensive framework considers six constructs which provides a generic research infrastructure for IS assessment (DeLone and McLean, 1992). In order to account for Internet and e-commerce, they proposed (DeLone and McLean, 2004), some new measures for each construct additional to their original model. However, DeLone and McLean do not suggest how and which measures should be chosen according to the type of the organization. Previously defined model where specify by some measures from the literature by other studies and lists them under the six generic success categories. However, this study do not provide any information how these measures are to be applied to real world cases, and how they are used to decide whether a system is successful or not. Furthermore, this proposal focuses on only e-commerce applications among various types of web based applications. For a generic WIS assessment, the context in which the organization acts should be taken into account, for example WIS for e-commerce or e-government cases require different measures since organizational goals of each differs. Özkan has proposed a conceptual model for IS effectiveness, and a framework for IS assessment (Özkan, 2006). In her study, IS is considered to be composed of three interacting constructs: people, resources and services and benefits in the conceptual model. The effect of Internet is said to be considered in the assessment, and it is included only in resources dimension as a single process. Therefore, this study does not explicitly and extensively account for the existence of Internet in terms of different organizational dimensions. There are many other studies focusing on specific WIS assessment, for example e-government and e-business, which are far from providing a broad, comprehensive generic web-based IS evaluation framework. Some of them propose various measures with traditional assessment approaches. With the Internet emergence, several business operations has changed, so Internet affects all processes performed in an organization directly or indirectly. Therefore, assessment of WIS should not be considered as an add-on dimension to the traditional IS assessment frameworks, but its effect should be considered effecting organization as a whole.