Correlates of surrogates for DSS success an exploratory study

Much research has been done to uncover the factors influencing DSS success. An often encountered problem is that objective measurement of DSS success is impossible. Therefore surrogates for DSS success are applied. Reviewing recent literature we found that many different surrogates have been used. This study addresses the question whether different surrogates also lead to different factors found to influence DSS success. In a field study in which 31 users of a Marketing DSS participated, we distinguished between four surrogates: intensity of use, competence of the user with the DSS, sophistication of use, and user satisfaction. All four surrogates can be imagined to influence DSS success positively. Each surrogate was measured by a few attributes. As independent variables eight factors were used, most of them were found to influence some kind of measurement of DSS success in other studies. The independent variables were correlated with the attributes of the surrogates for DSS success. Of the eight independent variables six showed significant correlations with attributes of different surrogates. For only three independent variables all correlations were consistent. The conclusion therefore is that in studying DSS success one should carefully decide upon the way in which DSS success is measured. The direction of the relationship (negative or positive) with an independent factor may be influenced by the choice of the surrogate for DSS success.