سیستم های اطلاعاتی مدیریت و اجرای برنامه های استراتژیک: نقش ترکیب تیم برتر

Organizations adopt sophisticated management information systems, which provide top managers with an ample range of information to achieve multiple strategic performances. However, organizations differ in the extent to which they improve their performance. This paper analyzes the role of top management team in the relationship between management information systems and strategic performance. Using data collected from 92 top management teams, it analyses how different team compositions interact with a sophisticated management information system, and how this interaction affects strategic performances, which are focused on cost reduction and flexibility. The findings show how the effect of management information system on strategic performance (focused on flexibility) is moderated by top management team diversity.

The enhanced competition in the private and public sector has spurred organizations into delivering greater efficiency, quality and more flexibility of services (Kaul, 1997). This condition imposes additional demands on the organization's information processing capabilities. In trying to achieve these strategic objectives, organizations adopt more sophisticated and comprehensive management information systems (MISs) (Choe, 1996 and Ghorab, 1997). These provide top managers with a comprehensive and broad range of information about multiple dimensions of the firm's operations (Choe, 1996 and Choe, 2004), facilitating decision-making and performance achievement (Kaplan & Norton, 1996; Kim & Lee, 1986). Organizations, however, differ in the extent to which they achieve strategic performance successfully. This paper addresses the relationship between sophisticated MIS and top management teams (TMTs), as the set of managers ultimately responsible for strategy management and organizational performance. Management literature has recognized that TMTs with different demographical characteristics (e.g. age, tenure, experience and education) are generally expected to gather diverse information and display higher-quality decisions (Carpenter, Geletkanycz, & Sanders, 2004; Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996). Management and information literatures have recognized (implicitly) the use of information by managers, and the question that remains is how (explicitly) different top managers use MIS for strategic management (Lin, 2006; Hagan, Watson & Barron, 2007). Although the effect of MIS on performance is widely recognized, prior findings on the direct and indirect relationship between and (strategic) performance far are mixed and confused (Fuller-Love & Cooper, 1996; Choe, 2004). The present study attempts to provide some clarification of the relationship between MIS design and strategic performance, by explicitly analyzing the role of TMT composition. Our general hypothesis is that diversity of TMT composition supports more sophisticated MIS in ways that contribute to multiple strategic performance, which are focused on cost control and flexibility (Gupta & Govindarajan, 1984; Lederer & Smith, 1989). We follow upper echelon literature, which views organizations as a reflection of their TMT (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). Upper echelon theory focuses on observable, demographic characteristics of TMT members to explain organizational outcomes (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996). This study also uses a contingency approach for analyzing the interaction fit between MIS sophistication and TMT composition. Contingency approach is the only one which asserts that performance depends on the existence of an alignment between several organizational characteristics, such as information systems, organizational structure and strategy (Choe, 1996; Kim & Lee, 1986). Data were collected from 92 TMTs in public hospitals in Spain, where organizations have to implement strategies focused both on cost-efficiency, flexibility and quality of service (Naranjo-Gil & Hartmann, 2006). This paper attempts to contribute to the management and information literature in several ways. First, this research provides evidence of the important role of TMT composition in the effectiveness of MIS on strategic performance. While prior research suggests that the MIS design enables organizations to enhance strategic performance, this paper directly tests the presence of this relationship and examines a strategic performance outcome of the enabling effect. Second, the present study offers a more integral explanation of the alignment between MIS design and performance by explicit consideration of different characteristics of the TMT (Hagan et al., 2007). Third, we test our hypotheses in a setting where similar organizations have to achieve multiple strategic performances, albeit to different extents (Madorrán & Val Pardo, 2005; Brittain & Macdougall, 1995). Thus, this context provides an opportunity to analyze the interactive effect of TMT diversity and MIS design on strategic performance, as it control the diversity as an antecedent of management information use and processing (Yoo & Alavi, 2001). Fourth, this paper adds to the limited knowledge on the relevance of management information system design for firms achieving multiple strategic objectives. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 develops the hypotheses about the relationships between TMT, MIS and performance. Section 3 describes the empirical survey study and the measurement of variables. Section 4 presents the results. Finally, Section 5 presents the discussion and conclusions of this study.

The objective of this paper was to analyze the effect of TMT diversity on the direct relationship between sophisticated MIS and strategic performances. Our findings showed that a sophisticated MIS facilitates organizations to achieve strategic performance based on both flexibility and cost reduction. The results also show support for the moderating effect of TMT diversity on the relationship between sophisticated MIS and flexibility-based strategic performance. This is a relevant finding because organizations are struggling to find ways to deliver greater quality and more flexibility of services and products. Thus, this paper extends the previous management information literature by analyzing explicitly the role of TMT composition and MIS sophistication in a fit affecting organizational performance. This paper has showed that TMT recognize the importance of receiving more sophisticated management information to achieve multiple strategic performances. This is consistent with previous studies on TMT diversity, which found that TMT heterogeneity is related to diversification, innovation and change (Carpenter et al., 2004; Wiersema & Bantel, 1992). These results are also in line with Choe (1996) and Kaplan and Norton (1996) arguments that a broader design of MAS overcomes the lack of relevance of MIS information for managing flexibility and decentralization. The findings of this paper also show that educational and functional diversity in TMTs, rather than age and tenure diversity, has a moderating effect on the relationship between sophisticated MIS and strategic performance. We can conclude that TMT with diverse educational and experience background can manage a broader range of information provide by sophisticated MIS. Thus, organizations can achieve strategic performance based on both flexibility and cost control. In this line, Simons et al. (1999) made a distinction between job-related TMT diversity (e.g. education and functional) and non-job-related TMT diversity (e.g. age). They found that job-related diversity increased debate in TMTs and affect positively on performance. However, non-job related diversity was not related to performance. In this vein, Smith et al. (1994) found that TMT diversity in terms of functional and educational background enhanced the effectiveness of TMT facing complex decision-making. Thus we can concluded that TMT diversity in terms of functional and educational has a high task-related skills and perspective to manage more comprehensive information, which represents a potential for enhancing strategic performance (Simons et al., 1999 and Smith et al., 1994). Overall this study has shown that TMT diversity is an important variable influencing the relationship between MIS sophistication and strategic performance. The issues of management organizational performance are critical problems confronting top managers in public organizations. The findings of this paper provide a fruitful avenue for improving our understanding of strategic performance in hospitals and other organizations. Governmental authorities have to design the MIS to provide a broad range of information to health care managers. Thus, top management teams can face the challenge of balances and coordinates patients, financial, organizational and community needs (Fuller-Love & Cooper, 1996; Brittain & Macdougall, 1995; Shortell et al., 1996). An important practical consequence of this study is that not only a sophisticated MIS design matter for achieving different strategic performances, but also an alignment with the TMT composition. A TMT with a wide set of skills, perspectives and background could optimize the effect of sophisticated MIS on strategic performance. Thus, organizations should design their MIS to cater for individual differences of TMTs, specially educational, training and functional backgrounds. Moreover, boards of directors, as responsible of appointing managers in the TMT, will require more detailed information on their job-related background to proper balance the strategic goals of the organization. As any empirical study, this paper has its limitations, such as the lack of testing of the directions of causality due to the cross-sectional nature of the study and the focus on a single industry. Although we believe that the hospital sector is well suited to test our hypotheses, it may contain idiosyncrasies that have been overlooked. Clearly, empirical testing of our hypotheses in a different industrial setting may add to the external validity of the results.