Decision support systems unfrastructure: The root problems of the management of changing IT

Rapidly emerging IT underpins decision support systems, but research has yet to explain the IT management challenges of such rapid change. This study sought to understand the problems of rapid IT change and the interrelationships between them. It used structured interviews with 16 IT professionals and 246 useable responses from a survey of 1000 such professionals. After identifying five problem categories, it proposed and tested theory that Vendor Competitiveness leads to Poor Quality, Incompatibility, and Management Confusion, and these increase Training Demands. Besides the theory, the research contributes a survey instrument and focal points to help IT managers better provide the infrastructure for DSS.