Software systems development and implementation have become more difficult with the rapid introduction of new technology and the increasing complexity of the marketplace. This paper proposes an evaluation framework for identifying the causes of shortfalls in implemented information system projects. This framework has been developed during a longitudinal case study of a problematic project, which is described.

IS managers are being put under increasing pressure to justify the value of corporate ITIS expenditure. Their constant quest for the 'holy grail' continues, as existing methods and approaches of justifying ITIS expenditure are still failing to deliver. The decision making process is not as objective and transparent as it is claimed or intended to be. This paper discusses seven commonly used tactics used by business managers to influence IT appraisals. The paper takes a 'devil's advocate' position and adopts some irony when looking at the area of power and politics in IT evaluation. Rather than promoting the use of these techniques, this article aims to raise awareness that IT evaluation is not as rational as most IT evaluation researcherspractitioners would want it to be or indeed claim it to be. It is argued that rationalisation or counter tactics may counteract influence techniques in an attempt to get behind the cloak and dagger side of organisational power and politics, but politics and power in decision‑making cannot and should not be filtered out. Due to dissimilarities of objectives, limitations of time and information, influence techniques will always be used. However, rather than being counterproductive, these techniques are essential in the process of decision making of IT projects. They help organisations reach better decisions, which receive more commitment than decisions that were forced to comply with strictly rational approaches. Awareness of the influence and manipulation techniques used in practice will help to deal with power and politics in IT evaluation and thereby come to better IT investment decisions.

Exceptions are events that cannot be handled by an information system by following normal processing rules. Exceptions arise for two main reasons: flaws in system design and post implementation changes in the system domain. Only few exceptions should arise in an information system serving its user community well. In practice, this is rarely the case and exceptions are sometimes rather common even with routine processes. In this paper, an exception‑based approach to evaluate information systems is presented together with practical examples of its use. The benefits of the analysis to information system management are elaborated on.

The Internet and related technologies have made a substantial impact on the way organisations conduct business in Australia and around the world. Australian organisations like their international counterparts have invested heavily to leverage the Internet and transform their traditional businesses into e‑businesses in the last seven years. E‑business investments are claiming a sizeable share of overall IT budgets in most organisations whether they are small, medium or large. However, managers are under constant pressure to justify e‑business costs and to ensure that these investments keep paying off. Earlier research on e‑business in Australia addressed issues of the rate of e‑business uptake and the application of the Internet to certain business processes. Research discussed in this paper is one of the first attempts to evaluate the value of e‑business. It is based on data collected, collated and analysed from the responses received from IT and e‑business managers throughout Australia. Research presented in this paper is based on a model developed in the USA (Barua et al, 2001) to identify the impact of e‑business drivers on operational excellence of firms which influence financial improvements. It was initiated to quantify the success of e‑business in Australia after huge losses from e‑business projects were reported by a few large organisations. The paper includes a review of literature on e‑business evaluation, research methodology, analysis techniques, a discussion of e‑business performance in Australia and presents the impact of e‑business on operational excellence and financial performance of the organisation.

This paper provides an overview of the papers that have been presented at the European Conference on IT Evaluation during the past eleven years. It considers the main issues, and learning themes addressed in papers presented to these Conferences. The paper also reflects on the possible future direction, which this research may take and three major research themes are suggested. Some 356 papers have been presented at ECITE. Over the eleven year period it is clear that the level of understanding as reflected in the papers has significantly increased. Themes, which were particularly well addressed, include IT and IS value, the multidisciplinary nature of evaluation, the importance of stakeholder analysis, organisational learning and life cycle management. Three issues are identified as particularly important for further research. These are, the theoretical underpinning of IT evaluation, improving the data sets for research and establishing a more common core of concepts.

The purpose of information systems post‑evaluation ought to be to improve the use of systems. The paper proposes the use of narratives as a tool in post‑evaluations. The potential in narratives is that they can convey meanings, interpretations, and knowledge about the system, which may potentially lead to action. The paper offer three main suggestions: 1) evaluations should form the basis for action; 2) narratives makes evaluation more relevant; and 3) post‑evaluations should be done with the aim of improving use. Narratives should be viewed as a complement to traditional evaluation methods and as a way of making evaluation more formative and thereby moving away from the more common summative perception of evaluation. The conclusion of the paper is that narratives can advance IS evaluation and provide a richer evaluation picture by conveying meanings not included in traditional evaluations.

The business community in the past decade has been characterised by debate over the value or effectiveness of e‑Commerce and how this type of technology needs to be implemented. During this period the business world has witnessed many examples of failures of Internet based business. There is little doubt that the high failure rate in Dot.Coms had much to do with misconceptions regarding the ease with which e‑Commerce could be implemented. Unrealistic expectations caused tried and tested business rules to be abandoned as hyperbole over took sound business sense. Although it is clear today that the Internet and the Web can facilitate business processes to add value to organisations, this technology has to be managed with considerable care. This paper reports on a case study conducted in kalahari.net, a well known South African e‑Tailing business. This case study highlights several valuable lessons to do with the evaluation of an e‑Commerce investment and how to ensure its success. Specifically the case study closely examines aspects of kalahari.net's IS management policy, and identifies a set of preliminary e‑Commerce success dimensions.

This article describes a proposal for a framework to evaluate and compare enterprise models. It suggests three major categories for grouping the model evaluation criteria: syntactic, semantic and pragmatic analysis. The paper draws on a wide literature to present a large selection of criteria and to operationalise their measurement by means of several possible metrics. As an empirical validation test, a selection of metrics for eight of the criteria has been calculated for fifteen large enterprise models. Their interpretation supports the usefulness and validity of the overall framework. Various attempts at deriving a composite overall quality score are discussed, but there is less confidence in the validity of this approach.