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To understand the relationship between web site quality and consumers' web attitudes and purchases.

The paper constructs and tests a model linking four sub‐dimensions of web site quality to purchasing intent of consumers using data gathered via a field survey.

Only the technical dimension of web site quality influences consumers' purchasing behavior both directly and indirectly through their attitudes towards the web site. Specific content quality and appearance quality have relatively stronger association with consumers' attitudes towards the web site than technical quality and general content quality do.

First, the present study used a sample of students in testing the proposed model. In the future, there may be a need to re‐test the same research model using a wider sample of web consumers. Second, attitudes toward and intentions to buying online may change over time and this study does not take this fact into account. Future research may need to examine the proposed relationships using a longitudinal design.

It was shown that by giving attention to building a technically sound web site with effective content and attractive design, an organization could bring in more consumers to its online business and convince them to make purchases.

Understanding the link between multiple dimensions of web site quality and purchasing behavior of web consumers should help organizations know how to improve forward integration with their customers. Previous research, although helpful, failed to examine this important relationship. This paper tries to fill this void in the literature.

In this paper, I examine the mediating effect of project planning on the link between three project uncertainty variables (project size, project diversity, and technical complexity) and IT project success in a developing country. The proposed model is validated using a field survey of 42 IT project leaders from Kuwait. The overall findings give support to the proposed model and to the role of project planning as a mediator between project uncertainty and project success. However, the results challenge the traditional conception by past IT implementation research regarding the direct negative role of uncertainty in IT projects. This finding may be understood in light of the different manifestations that uncertainty may have for IT projects in developing countries. Implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

When implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, top management commonly faces an unwanted attitude from potential users – for one reason or another, they resist the implementation process. Top management should, therefore, proactively deal with this problem instead of reactively confronting it. In this paper, I describe an integrated, process‐oriented approach for facing the complex social problem of workers’ resistance to ERP.

This study describes the state of the Internet in Arab countries. It reports certain Internet characteristics and e‐commerce issues in the region and brings some of the critical challenges facing the diffusion of the Internet and its applications in Arab countries to the attention of policy makers in these nations. Overall, the review reveals that most Arab countries still have a long way to cover before being able to fully realize the benefits of the Internet.

In an uncertain and competitive environment, organizations are forced to search for philosophies to guide performance improvement efforts. The current literature has paid considerable attention to two particular philosophies ‐ business process redesign (BPR) and total quality management (TQM). These two movements emphasize a reconfiguration of an organization’s processes to increase performance that ultimately should facilitate the recuperation of the competitive posture of the organization. The literature has treated the same two approaches, however, as substitutes. No attempt has been made to pinpoint the possible synergy between the two improvement philosophies. The thrust of this paper is to present a framework that would help information systems managers understand the conceptual link between BPR and TQM and the joined implications these approaches have for the management of the information systems organization.

The purpose of this paper is to help managers to successfully plan, implement, and operate enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects using a risk management framework.

This paper adopted a combined literature review and case study method. Using literature review, the paper first identified major issues of managing ERP projects and develops a risk management framework for managing those issues. The proposed risk management framework was then applied to a ERP implementation project of a UK‐based energy services group and its effectiveness for managing ERP projects implementation had been demonstrated. Additionally, the risk factors as identified from the case application are compared with the risk factors from the previous researches so as to suggest mitigating measures.

All the risk factors are categorized into planning, implementation and operations phases along with project processes, organizational transformation and information technology (IT) perspectives. Project implementation phase is the most vulnerable to failure. The case study results reveal that the effect of other projects on on‐going ERP project, management of overall IT architecture and non‐availability of resources for organizational transformation are most critical from likelihood and impact perspectives. Managing risk across various phases of project and equal emphasize to effective project management, organizational transformation and IT adoption are the key to success in ERP implementation.

The risk factors, which were identified using literature review and the case study, have great significance as mitigating measures of those risks may result successful implementation of ERP projects in the industry. Additionally, proposed risk management framework could be customized to implement ERP projects elsewhere.

ERP projects are risky as they are capital intensive, technically complex, and call for organizational transformation. There are both success and failure stories. However, both researchers and practitioners agree, that if it can be implemented and operated successfully and benefits should be achievable. Although there are many studies on ERP implementation, little has been discussed on managing risks of ERP projects. Therefore, this paper bridges the gap.