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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Management Information Systems Research Center, University of Minnesota is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to MIS Quarterly. Introduction A significant amount of effort has been directed towards identifying the factors and processes contributing to information system success. In particular, user involvement in the systems development process and top management support towards computer-based information systems have received considerable research attention [14]. Other factors thought to influence system success are user cognitive style and individual differences [6,21,45], user expectations and attitudes [12,34], and technical system quality [2,24]. Investigators have also looked at the impact of power redistribution [25,29] and user motivation on system success. Examples of process research which highlight the importance of the relationship between user and designer throughout all phases of the system development process can be found in Zand and Sorenson [44] and Ginzberg [11]. The user's environment, in particular the organizational and decision context, has been discussed extensively in the literature [3,7,26]; yet there is a scarcity of empirical research on the subject, with the exception of Bean et al. [1], Abstract Robey and Zeller [30], and Halladay [19].A field study involving 124 organizations, and 378 DSS users, was conducted to ascertain the influence of the user's task environment on DSS success. Three groups were analyzed in the study: managers, financial and planning analysts (FPA's), and "others" who were predominantly management scientists or data processing analysts. The study focused on three factors discussed in the MIS literature as potential, but unsubstantiated contributors to DSS success: decision context (degree of problem structure), level of task interdependence (degree of interaction with others), and level of task constraints (degree of decision maker authority and autonomy). There was some evidence that the decision context and the level of task interdependence were moderately related to decision-making success for managers and others. There was very little support found to substantiate a relationship between the level of task constraints and DSS success for any group in the study. The results reaffirmed that the level of top management support, user training, and length of DSS use are important correlates of DSS success.Field research on the factors affecting successful DSS implementation is rare, however three DSS field studies are notable. Fuerst [10] conducted an empirical field study which indicated that accuracy and relevance of output, user training, and experience in the decision maker's role affected DSS use. ...

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The pervasiveness of software piracy throughout the world is having a profound effect on the software publishing industry and the development of digital intellectual properties and technologies—especially in developing countries, where the piracy rates are extremely high. An economic model is first presented that incorporates the incentive structures for governments, software publishers, and individual consumers. The analytical model provides the economic rationale for the reluctance of a number of governments to aggressively enact and enforce intellectual property rights. An important proposition derived from the analysis states that the government's incentive to enact and enforce copyright laws are closely related to the size of the domestic software industry. The ensuing empirical study provides support for the proposition and further suggests that this relationship holds regardless of the income levels of the countries. Our analysis reveals that alliances between foreign and domestic software publishers through product relationships can be mutually beneficial and will provide an environment of increased copyright enforcement. These results provide a viable strategy to combat global software piracy. With strong policies on copyright enforcement, and a vigorous promotion of alliances between foreign and domestic publishers, a government can increase the net welfare of the country and help establish a strong domestic software industry. Through product relationships with domestic publishers, a foreign publisher can improve profits and operate in an environment of increased intellectual property protection. We then present a general model of ethical behavior related to the impact of behavioral and cultural factors on software piracy. The purpose of this model is to examine whether these determinants of piracy behavior are supranational and transcend cultural and ethical barriers. An empirical study involving U.S. and Indian graduate students suggests that the general model of ethics as related to software piracy is valid in the United States. However, the model results from the Indian sample suggest that additional cross-cultural research with revised models and improved scales is necessary.