A Look in to the obstacles of information use and communication technology to enhance customer response system in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company

Transcription

1 BULLETIN OF THE GEORGIAN NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, vols. 8, no. 2, No2,2014 A Look in to the obstacles of information use and communication technology to enhance customer response system in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company Saeed Ahmadpour Kaskary *, Hamid Sadjadi **, Reza Davari Dolatabadi ***,Kourosh Asayesh *** * Taferesh University, Tafresh, Iran ** Department of Accounting and Management,Eslamshahr Branch. Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran *** Department of Information Technology Management, Electronic Business Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University,Tehran,Iran **** Department of financial Management,Azad University,Qom Branch,Qom,Iran ABSTRACT- Development of efficient and effective organizations to satisfy the requirements of customer service in a rapid, easy and useful way is one of the major goals of (ICT) or information and communication Technology that has been the attention objective of public and private agencies over the last few years. The research method is cause-comparison which directs to scrutinize the barriers to use the information and communication technology to improve customer response system in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. The research population in focus encompasses the personnel of Tabriz tractor manufacturing company from which 240 individuals have been selected using random sampling according to the Morgan table. A researcher-made questionnaire form based on Likert five alternative scale (absolutely agree, agree, no opinion, disagree, absolutely disagree) has been used to aggregate related data. Data collected were analyzed in both descriptive and inferential methods (Ftest) using SPSS18 software. The results show that there is a significant relationship among social and infrastructural barriers, digital and legal division, information security, change management as well as accountability system in Tabriz Tractor Manufacturing Company. In addition, it has been shown that social barriers have the maximum influence and change management have the minimal effect on accountability system in Tabriz Tractor Manufacturing Company Bull. Georg. Natl.Acad. Sci. Key words: accountability, information technology, social barriers, information security, infrastructure, change management Due to the revelation of information and communication technology era which comprises the use of computer and communication tools to aggregate, organize, store and publish information, including audio and video, text, and numbers, today, the situation requires the government agencies and private sectors to have in more flexibility and adaptability with clients. So, the use of this technology in the public sector is to provide information and services to meet the demands of stakeholders and associated with specific barriers (Sarrafizadeh, 2010). Comprehending the significance and contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) in enhancing and improving system response to identified public sectors, policy makers of different areas and societies have aimed and intended to employ this technology in public sector. Therefore, through the current study, it has been tried to investigate the barriers to use of information and communication technology to enhance customer response system in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. Novel and modern concepts of being accountable in different societies is defined as a process in which citizens and leaders will be responsible for their conduct and manners as well as performance. This idea is often created through a process of selecting people's representatives in legislatures to make the public sector managers and employees accountable to the regulatory mechanism. The question that increases the significance of 2014 Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci.

2 A Look in to the obstacles of information use and communication technology 469 the present research is that whether the governmental companies' ICT infrastructure has the necessary ability to clarify and bring order to set up transparent accountability system? And whether the barriers related to the effective use of ICT in the government's accountability system can be recognized, formulated and ranked. Concerning the investigation carried out and consequently the dissatisfying level of accountability system in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company, the present research is felt to be necessary in this population. Accountability is referred to as a warranty to ensure the optimum use of the public resources. Accountability means that a person or a group that has been assigned the responsibility to execute something is expected to be accountable regarding the positive and negative effects of their actions and interpret how and why these effects happened (Zareian, 2009). At the same time, the e-government which is the result of making use of ICT tools and techniques in the public sector has developed specific guidelines to citizen in order to access the information and services like effective offering of goods and governmental services without intervention of the administrative bureaucracy of traditional systems and providing extensive opportunities for direct participation of citizens in order to be more actively involved in government decision-making methods. Therefore, regarding the points mentioned, the main objective of the present research is to recognize the social and infrastructural, digital divide, legal, information security, change management barriers as the most important barriers to effective use of ICT in order to improve accountability system be to stakeholders. Some of the variables are discussed below: Social barriers: It refers to the required steps for access and participation and cooperation of all citizens in public and private services and electronic information regardless of physical, geographical, social and cultural limitations (Jalali, 2010). Infrastructure barriers: It refers to organizational designing in terms of principles and patterns of ICT which include E-readiness, knowledge, education, and progress in the use of electronic services (Sarrafizadeh, 2008). Barriers of the digital divide: It refers to the lack of access of citizens to electronic resources in different countries with regard to economic status, races, or different locations and infrastructure, illiteracy and language differences when compared with developed countries (Hazhbarkiani, 2011). Legal barriers: It consists of a set of new rules, procedures, laws and legal changes in items such as electronic signatures, electronic records, freedom of information, data protection, computer crimes, intellectual property rights and copyright of information document to do e-government activities and to sign a contract or agreement with a digital letter (Ebadi, 2008).Information securityy barriers: It refers to the protection of information and to minimize the risk of unauthorized disclosure of the information to achieve healthy data (Moghaddasi, 2009).Barriers to change management: It refers to change management methods in organizations and being aware of the culture of an organization, changes in government bureaucracy and hierarchy, and cultural values for higher capacity development, and classified information and incentives to reduce employee resistance to learning, and systematic changes in the plans and programs for employee participation in all stages of changes (Sanayee, 2007).Due to the importance of the field, many studies have been conducted in several countries. Farhangi (2010) has done a study to investigate the barriers of effective use of ICT to improve the accountability system in Iran's state-owned mining companies. The results revealed that the factors of social, infrastructure, digital divide and legal barriers have the most hindering nature and information security and change management barriers have the least hindering nature in effective using of ICT to improve the accountability system in Iran's state-owned mining companies. Nassiri (2011) has done a same study in a different situation through which they claimed that lack of a written policy on information technology, administrators negative attitude about IT, lack of planning, management and organization, lack of or inadequate regulation at the national level and the lack of external support are the main barriers in the sue of information and communication technology applications.attaran (2010) investigated the barriers of making use of ICT in Higher Education. The results revealed that the lack of enough supervisor staff in education and formal regulatory mechanism governing is an important factor in using ICT.Through the studies done in the field, it has been revealed that there is a meaningful relationship between ICT and improving accountability system and due to the important role that ICT plays in effective improvement of accountability systems in organizations and companies much research is felt to confirm or reject the findings of the previous studies. So through the current research it has been tried to investigating the barriers of making use of information and Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols 8, no. 2, 2014

3 470 Saeed Ahmadpour Kaskary communication technology to improve customer response system in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. To do so, the following hypotheses will be investigated: 1. Social barrier is one of the drawbacks associated with the use of information and communication technology in order to establish accountability system. 2. Infrastructure barrier is one of the drawbacks associated with the use of information and communication technology in order to establish accountability system. 3. Legal barrier is one of the drawbacks associated with the use of information and communication technology in order to establish accountability system. 4. Information security is one of the drawbacks associated with the use of information and communication Technology in order to establish accountability system. 5. Digital divide is one of the drawbacks associated with the use of information and communication technology in order to establish accountability system. 6. Change management is one of the drawbacks associated with the use of information and communication technology in order to establish accountability system. Materials and methods In this study, research method is cause-comparison and finally to conclude about the research hypotheses the analytical-description method was used. The research population of the current research includes employees of the target office, Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. From this population 240 people have been chosen using limited random sampling in accordance with Morgan table. In order to assess barriers to make use of information and communication technology a researcher-made Questionnaire has been used. To test the validity of data collection tools, the face or formal validity has been used. The test the reliability of the questionnaire, it was performed on 40 employees using the Cranach alpha Coefficient (Table 1). Statistics showed that the research questionnaire has a high reliability. Table 1. Reliability test of questions of using information technology barriers and establishing accountability system Reliability Statistics In order to analyze the data obtained in this study, using descriptive statistics, status indicators of each of the variables in the population have been investigated. Finally, using inferential statistics (F test), differences between variables were evaluated. Research Results In this section, the results of variables analysis through descriptive statistics about the status of variables, the results of inferential statistics to generalize the results of the sample to the whole population and the results of overall analysis were included. In the following table (table 2) results of descriptive statistics show that the average scores of the independent variables and the dependent variable is symmetric regarding the subjects under investigation with no deviation from normal. Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols. 8, no. 2, 2014

4 A Look in to the obstacles of information use and communication technology 471 Table 2. Descriptive results of independent and dependent variables Descriptive Statistics Null hypothesis: There is no relationship between barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems. H0: P=0 Positive hypothesis: There is a relationship between barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems. H0: P 0 Table 3. Squares mean (ANOVA) of degree of improvement of accountability system and barriers of making use of ICT Improvement of accountability system Regarding the first sub-hypothesis of the study (social barriers), since the amount of Sig. is (Sig=0.001) (table 3), the null hypothesis is rejected with an error of less than one percent and the opposite hypothesis i.e. hypothesis 1 is confirmed. As a result, there is a significant difference between social barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. - Regarding the second sub-hypothesis of the study (infrastructure barriers), since the amount of Sig. is (Sig. =0.005) (table 3), the null hypothesis is rejected with an error of less than one percent and the opposite hypothesis i.e. hypothesis 1 is confirmed. As a result, there is a significant difference between Infrastructure barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. - Regarding the third sub-hypothesis of the study (legal barriers), since the amount of Sig. is (Sig=0.000) (table 3), the null hypothesis is rejected with an error of less than one percent and the opposite hypothesis i.e. hypothesis 1 is confirmed. As a result, there is a significant difference between legal barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. - Regarding the fourth sub-hypothesis of the study (information security barriers), since the amount of Sig. is (Sig. =0.002) (table 3), the null hypothesis is rejected with an error of less than one percent and the opposite hypothesis i.e. hypothesis 1 is confirmed. As a result, there is a significant difference between information security barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. - Regarding the fourth sub-hypothesis of the study (digital divide barriers), since the amount of Sig. is (Sig. =0.001) (table 3), the null hypothesis is rejected with an error of less than one percent and the opposite hypothesis i.e. hypothesis 1 is confirmed. As a result, there is a significant difference between digital divide barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols 8, no. 2, 2014

5 472 Saeed Ahmadpour Kaskary - Regarding the sixth sub-hypothesis of the study (change management barriers), since the amount of Sig. is (Sig. =0.006) (table 3), the null hypothesis is rejected with an error of less than one percent and the opposite hypothesis i.e. hypothesis 1 is confirmed. As a result, there is a significant difference between change management barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. Table 4. Comparison of means of different levels of barriers of making use of ICT through Duncan method at the level of 0.01 Duncan According to the Duncan table (Table 4), it is observed that there are significant differences between different levels of barriers of making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems. - There is a difference between high and middle levels and low level of social barriers and the difference is high in the low level of social barriers in accountability system and reaches its highest rate. - There is a difference between high and middle levels and low level of infrastructure barriers and the difference is high in the low level of infrastructure barriers in accountability system and reaches its highest rate. - There is a difference between high and middle levels and low level of legal barriers and the difference is high in the low level of legal barriers in accountability system and reaches its highest rate. - There is a difference between high and middle levels and low level of digital divide barriers and the difference is high in the low level of digital divide barriers in accountability system and reaches its highest rate. - There is a difference between high and middle levels and low level of change management barriers and the difference is high in the low level of change management barriers in accountability system and reaches its highest rate. Conclusion/Discussion The study results confirm that there are consequential differences among different levels of barriers in making use of ICT and the improvement of accountability systems in Tabriz tractor manufacturing company. Research results are in conformity with Farhangi (2010), Nassiri (2011), and Attaran (2010). However, these differences are also seen among high, middle as well as low levels. On the basis of statistical analysis of barriers in focus (social, infrastructure, digital divide, information security, change management) accountability system is influenced and affected in Tabriz Tractor manufacturing company.research results are in conformity with Farhangi (2010), Nassiri (2011), and Attaran (2010). The study results also show that the company needs a new structural architecture on a set of principles, rules and models to build and develop the infrastructure of ICT. In addition, since infrastructure and social obstacles that were the highest priority components of the six research component, managers of the company under study require to pay special attention to the empowerment of users and stakeholders for easy access to the tools and capabilities of this technology and the development of digital literacy and the necessary infrastructure in this area in order to develop ICT-based accountability system, pay special attention to the development of this technology in order to develop ICT-based accountability system, and to establish organizational structures and structuring data-operational business processes altered to satisfy network requirements provide. Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols. 8, no. 2, 2014

6 A Look in to the obstacles of information use and communication technology 473 ვეძებოთ წელს დაბრკოლებები ინფორმაციის გამოყენება და საკომუნიკაციო ტექნოლოგიების გაღრმავებას სამომხმარებლო რეაგირების სისტემა თავრიზი ტრაქტორების მწარმოებელი კომპანია განვითარების ქმედითი და ეფექტიანი ორგანიზაციების მოთხოვნების დაკმაყოფილება მომსახურების სწრაფი, მარტივი და სასარგებლო გზა არის ერთ-ერთი მთავარი მიზანი და საინფორმაციო და საკომუნიკაციო ტექნოლოგიების, რომ უკვე ყურადღებით მიზანია საჯარო და კერძო ორგანოების მიერ ბოლო რამდენიმე წლის განმავლობაში. კვლევის მეთოდი არის მიზეზი შედარებით, რომელიც ხელმძღვანელობს დეტალურად ბარიერების გამოიყენოს საინფორმაციო და საკომუნიკაციო ტექნოლოგიების გასაუმჯობესებლად სამომხმარებლო რეაგირების სისტემის თავრიზი ტრაქტორების მწარმოებელი კომპანია. კვლევის მოსახლეობის აქცენტი მოიცავს პერსონალის თავრიზის ტრაქტორების წარმოება კომპანია, რომელიც პირი იქნა არჩეული გამოყენებით შემთხვევითი შერჩევის მიხედვით მორგან მაგიდასთან. მკვლევარი მიერ კითხვარის ფორმა საფუძველზე ხუთ ალტერნატიული მასშტაბის (სრულიად ვეთანხმები, ვეთანხმები, აზრი, არ ვეთანხმები, სრულიად არ ვეთანხმები), გამოიყენება საერთო დაკავშირებული მონაცემები. REFERENCES 1. Attaran H, Barriers of making use of ICT in Higher Education. IT in training system. 2. Ebadi R, Electronic Learning and Education, Mehr Publications, Tehran, Iran. 3. Farhangi B, Barriers of effective use of ICT to improve the accountability system in Iran's state-owned mining companies, Journal of Industry, 6, Hazhbarkiani K, The impact of E-commerce on macroeconomic variables, Department of Commerce Department of Planning and Economic Studies Publication, Tehran, Iran. 5. Jalali A, Electronics Research Report, Science and Industry University Publication, Tehran, Iran. 6. Moghaddasi A, Barriers and solutions of E-government in Iran, Accounting and Management 7. Publication, Tehran, Iran. 8. Nassiri K, ICT and its application. IT journal, 13, Sanayee A, Information Technology for Managers, Isfahan University Publication, Isfahan, Iran. 10. Sarrafizadeh A, Fundamentals of Information Technology in organization, Mir Publication, Tehran, 11. Iran. 12. Sarrafizadeh A, Information Technology in organization, Mir Publication, Tehran, Iran. 13. Zareian D, Information and Communication Technology Development Plan, ICT Journal, 4, Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols 8, no. 2, 2014