Communication competence factors as moderators to the relationship between user participation and information quality

Participation area of study. Users are considered sources
of knowledge and information for system developers. If
the users cannot competently communicate their
knowledge with system developers, important information
for developing a successful system may be missing,
which, in turn, can attenuate the quality of information
systems. The objective of this study is then to investigate
the impacts of users’ communication competence on the
information quality of an information system in the user
participation context.
Past user participation researchers based their
studies upon participative decision making theory.

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COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE FACTORS AS MODERATORS TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN USER
PARTICIPATION AND INFORMATION QUALITY
Journal of Information Technology Management Volume XX, Number 4, 2009
2
Wagner, Leana, Locke, and Schweiger [40] explained that
“participation has such effects due to increases in
information, knowledge, creativity, and understanding
that grow out of improved communication, joint decision
making, and a fuller grasp of job demands and
organizational policies.” Developed from this theory, user
participation studies are predicated on the premise that the
more users share their knowledge with system developers,
the more knowledge the developers have about
developing an information system, and consequently the
better the system meets its requirements. However,
factors influencing the extent to which users share their
knowledge during their participation have not been
adequately investigated.
It is indisputable that knowledge and information
sharing cannot take place without some kind of
communications between users and system developers.
The objective of this study is to examine communication-
related 
factors 
(derived 
from 
a 
communication
competence 
framework) that may influence the
relationship between user participation and system
outcomes. Past research mostly focused on the effects of
user participation on user satisfaction. A problem with
using user satisfaction as a surrogate to system success is
that it merely measures user’s attitude on his/her systems
and does not reflect the actual quality of the system
outcome [30]. According to the participative decision
making theory, participation increases job performances
and productivity. It follows that user participation should
also increase performances, herein viewed as the quality
of systems. According to the DeLone and McLean [6]’s
system success model, there are two types of quality:
system quality and information quality. System quality is
not the variable of interest in this study because system
quality is more affected by the system developers’
capabilities than by participation of users. The
contribution that users can make is to share their
expectations and useful knowledge with the system
developers to improve the quality of the informational
outputs of an information system. Therefore, information
quality of an information system is, in the context of this
research, a more appropriate surrogate for system success.
This research attempts to fill this gap by
answering questions: A.) “Does user participation affect
the information quality of a system?” and B.) “Do
communication-related factors of users, who participated
in system development, affect the information quality of
systems?”