Key issues in information systems in the federal government: A comparative study

This research was based on the assumption that, for those who manage and support information systems, there is benefit in knowing the relative importance of the information systems issues that affect them. This research noted that numerous studies of IS issue have been done for the benefit of private sector organizations, but little has been done relative to federal sector organizations. A goal of this research was to determine if the results of studies of IS issues in private sector organizations are relevant to, and of benefit to, the federal IS manager, and those who support federal IS systems. The major finding of this study--through a series of linked questionnaires--was the identification and ranking of information systems issues in the federal sector. Another finding of this study was that there were significant differences in the rankings of IS issues when those same IS issues were separately rated by private sector IS executives and federal sector IS executives. This suggested two very different viewpoints regarding IS issues from the two sectors. Another result of this study was the identification of IS issues in the federal sector (proposed by the federal IS executives themselves) that had not appeared in studies of private sector organizations, or had disappeared from private sector studies some time ago. A general conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that federal IS managers, and those who support the federal government's $20 billion per year investment in information technology, cannot generally rely on the rankings of the importance of IS issues in studies of private sector organizations to be relevant to federal sector organizations.