Identifying the value and importance of an information system application

Information systems are vital to the operation and management of every organization. Managers who invest large amounts of money and other resources in information systems often do not know which information systems applications will benefit the organization. This article proposes and tests an approach for evaluating the benefit to the organization gained by the use of an individual information systems application. The test group was comprised of a random sample of 310 medium and large sized manufacturing organizations. We found that different organizations gain different benefits by using the same information system applications, and that the benefit an organization gains from using a computerized application increases as a function of the increase of two types of independent variables representing the level of complexity and uncertainty regarding a specific activity (customers, suppliers, etc.), and the impact of the decision supported by the added information on the organization's objectives.