Business Professionals’ Perceptions Related to the Influence of Information Technology in Individual Work

Abstract

According to the literature, much has been said about the impact of IT in organizations, but little about its impact on the individual. This study aims to identify IT benefits in individual work, choosing as a proxy some post-graduation “latu sensu” students, from a federal university in the south of Brazil. For data collecting, a questionnaire based on studies of Torkzadeh and Doll (1999) and Pereira (2003) has been prepared. Torkzadeh and Doll dealt with the process of working; Pereira, by using the four phases of decision making . The final instrument, after being validated and tested, amounted to 21 questions to detect the potential benefits of IT. The results demonstrated that users are satisfied, by pointing an average of 2.69 on a scale of "1" (little satisfied) to "5" (very much satisfied). The framework, work process, got an overall average [2.82]. Managerial control [3.10] and productivity [3.06] had the highest ratings; innovation [2.34], the lowest one. Technologies fully implemented had greater satisfaction in all constructs of the survey with statistically significant differences. Such differences were also proven in the IT solutions that use ERP technology, the best-evaluated one. When comparing age, it was found that younger users were more satisfied with the benefits of technology. As concerning the number of employees, small business users were less satisfied with IT.