What properly validated surveys can tell us about successful implementation of small business information systems

There is a definite focus in Information Systems (IS) research on the identification of factors that influence IS success in small business. Identification of successful factors is of importance to the individuals running those businesses as well as researchers seeking to enunciate the value of IS. The first step in this process is to develop models of interacting factors that contribute to success. A second important step is the development of instruments to measure these core constructs. Without such instruments, it is not possible to collect the kind of benchmarking data that will help individual companies to plan their CBIS ventures. In this paper the authors report on the use of such an instrument to measure CEO characteristics, organisational characteristics and decision-making strategies related to IS among a group of 171 small businesses located on the East Coast of Australia. They begin by tracing the origins of the instrument before describing what the instrument tells us about how these small businesses went about implementing their computer-based information systems (CBIS) and how satisfied users were with their systems.