Propositions towards the Impact of Moral Values in Information

System Design on Information System Success Depicted by the

DeLone & McLean Information System Success Model

Lukas R. G. Fitz and Jochen Scheeg

Department of Business and Management, Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences,

Magdeburger Straße 50, 14770 Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany

Keywords: Moral Values, Information System Design, Information System Success.

Abstract: This paper develops six propositions concerning the impact of moral values in information system design

(MVISD) on information system (IS) success by utilizing the IS Success model of DeLone and McLean

(DMISSM). The propositions are grounded on moral objectives identified in MVISD design literature and

their conjunctions with DMISSM dimensions. An overview of related literature and an explication of the

identified research gap are provided beforehand. New research opportunities emerging from the findings of

this paper are outlined at the end.

1 INTRODUCTION

To begin with, the following quote is an exemplary

motivational statement for this work:

“Our moral imperative is clear. We must insure

that information technology, and the information it

handles, are used to enhance the dignity of mankind.”

(Mason, 1986, p. 11)

The here-cited opinion paper by Mason initiated a

novel morality and ethics dimension in Information

Systems (IS) Research, which implicitly gained more

attention (Stahl, 2012). Mason (1986) identified four

moral issues in regards of IS: privacy, accuracy,

property and access (PAPA). Looking at current

political and societal debates, these moral issues have

not vanished in our modern age of digital

transformation but have rather become a major topic

of concern in the consideration of morally appropriate

solutions. For this reason, Laudon and Laudon (2017)

introduced a model of five moral dimensions of the

information age which reached out to the basics of IS

education as part of a students’ text book:

“information rights and obligations”, “property rights

and obligations”, “accountability and control”,

“System Quality” and “quality of life”. This example

indicates that moral values in information system

development (MVISD) are not only of academic

interest, but are also dealt with by educators and

practitioners.

On the other hand, organizations are setting a

special focus on investing into the development,

implementation and operation of successful IS

(DeLone & McLean, 2016). With growing demand

for sophisticated, yet individual solutions, those

information environments tend to become larger and

more networked in terms of their components’

quantity and complexity of relationships (Courtney et

al., 2008). Conjunctions between IS Success and

other concepts, from IS- and non-IS-domains, have

thus become more diverse as well (Urbach & Müller,

2012).

This paper investigates in which way MVISD can

impact IS Success and thereby possibly affect the

overall impact of IS in an organization. The aim is to

contribute to a general understanding of relationships

between MVISD and IS Success by formulating

propositions of MVISD impact towards IS Success

entities of the DeLone and McLean (2003) IS Success

model (DMISSM).

2 RELATED WORK

In favour of the the aim of this paper and to provide a

basis for the discussion of potential research gaps, this

section provides an overview of existing literature

and state-of-the-art knowledge concerning IS

Success, specifically the DMISSM, and MVISD.

Fitz, L. and Scheeg, J.

Propositions towards the Impact of Moral Values in Information System Design on Information System Success Depicted by the DeLone McLean Information System Success Model.

DOI: 10.5220/0010626101950206

In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on e-Business (ICE-B 2021), pages 195-206

ISBN: 978-989-758-527-2

195

2.1 Description of the Literature

A literature review was carried out using scientific

literature databases and search engines such as AIS e-

library, ACM Digital Library or IEEE Explore to

receive an overview of yet-conducted work on the

present topic. The review followed recommendations

for conducting literature reviews by Snyder (2019).

Search terms aimed at two different research

directions. The following terms were used separately

or combined: (1) “Information System Success”,

“DeLone McLean Model”; (2) “Moral”, “Information

System”, “Moral Values”, “Information System

Design”, “Information System Development”. The

performed search resulted in more than 500.000

found documents. The results were sorted by

relevancy. Titles and abstracts of the first 30 entries

per search outcome were scanned.

From a first selection, 47 sources were identified

as relevant to the purpose of this paper. Moreover,

backward and forward searches were included to

receive a complete picture on certain aspects,

resulting in 60 papers to be inspected. In a second

review cycle, papers were dropped due to yet-unnoted

irrelevancy, redundancy or if they considered too

early stages of work in progress. Finally, 25 sources

were included in both parts of this review.

2.2 DeLone and Mclean Information

System Success Model

Research on IS Success, investigating the effective

creation, distribution and use of information via

technology, has become a fast-growing scientific

discipline, which holds a vast amount of papers and

has been addressed in manifold ways by a large

number of authors (Petter et al., 2012). Therefore,

substantial insights could be gained from the

investigation of yet-conducted literature reviews. In

reviewing literature, authors share the observation

that a large number of authors based their research on

the Information System Success Model of DeLone

and McLean (1992) and its updated version of 2003

(DeLone & McLean, 2003) and see it as the probably

most influential IS Success model in the IS research

community (Agourram & Ingham, 2007; Iivari, 2005;

Urbach & Müller, 2012; Urbach et al., 2009; Visser

et al., 2012). Therefore, the components of this model

will be briefly introduced in this section.

In the DMISSM of 1992, “System Quality” and

“Information Quality” are separately and jointly

affecting the information system “Use” and “User

Satisfaction”. The amount of “Use” can subsequently

have positive or negative effects on “User

Satisfaction” and vice versa. The overall “System

Use” results in an “Individual Impact” for the user,

which finally leads to an “Organizational Impact”.

DeLone and McLean (1992) reviewed literature on

each of the suggested components. It was found that

“System Quality” is characterized by reliability,

response-time, ease-of-use and other measures of the

processing system itself. “Information Quality”

includes the output quality of such systems,

especially concerning information reports. “Use”

describes the frequency, context, impact and other

characteristics of the actual use of the information

output of the system and can in some contexts also be

seen as a measure of system adoption, according to

the authors. “User Satisfaction” implicitly describes

the response of users to the “Use”. DeLone and

McLean saw “impact” closely related to the term

“performance” and explain that the “Individual

Impact” may be reflected for instance by the change

of a user’s productivity, learning progress, task

fulfilment or understanding of the information, while

“Organizational Impact” may simultaneously affect

the organizational performance in aspects such as

decision-making, return on investment or

innovations. (DeLone & McLean, 1992).

In an updated version of the model, a new

instrument, namely “Service Quality” (Pitt et al.,

1995) was introduced by DeLone and McLean (2003)

to describe the overall quality which affects “Use”

and “User Satisfaction”. “Service Quality” focusses

on the role of IS as service providers, besides their

function as information providers. The three quality

instruments are now ascribed to impact on “Intention

to use” first, before actual “Use” applies, and impact

on “User Satisfaction”. Here, “Intention to use”

describes an attitude towards the system rather than a

behavior, taking into account that “Use” as such may

be mandatory or voluntary, informed or uninformed,

effective or ineffective. The implicit “Use” of a

system still impacts “User Satisfaction” in both a

processual and causal sense. “User Satisfaction” itself

however feeds back to “Intention to use” in the

updated model. Formerly described “Individual

Impacts” and “Organiszational Impacts” as

consequences of System Use are now grouped into a

single entity: “Net Benefits”. The new term allows for

the measurement of individual or organizational

benefits and can have different definitions in different

contexts, with different stakeholders. Moreover,

DeLone and McLean (2003) suggested feedback

loops of “Net Benefits” impacting both “Intention to

use” and “User Satisfaction”, as both positive

outcome and lack of benefits could lead to a change

E-DaM 2021 - Special Session on Empowering the digital me through trustworthy and user-centric information systems

196

Figure 1: Updated DeLone and McLean (2003) IS Success Model (modified). Own visualization derived from DeLone and

McLean (2016, p. 9).

in frequency of use and continuance of the system.

More recently, DeLone and McLean (2016) modified

the IS Success model of 2003 by renaming “Net

Benefits” to “Net Impacts” and adding

“maintenance” feedback loops emerging from “Use”

and “User Satisfaction”, impacting all three quality

dimensions. The modified updated DMISSM is

visualized in Figure 1. In the literature reviewed, most

authors aimed at enhancing and using existing IS

Success models rather than developing a new one,

like Cuellar et al. (2006); Lehner et al. (2014); Visser

et al. (2012).

Others tested and validated both the models of

1992 (Iivari, 2005) and 2003 (Hu & Wu, 2016). An

overall finding was that IS Success, measured with

the DMISSM, is mostly seen from the end-user

perspective, as it concerns the actual use of the IS and

its consequences (Agourram & Ingham, 2007; Hu &

Wu, 2016; Twine & Brown, 2011). No papers

reviewed saw IS Success models from a developer

perspective.

A more thorough and critical meta-review of the

DMISSMs was recently conducted by Jeyaraj (2020)

in which 53 empirical studies were analyzed with the

intention to study the empirical support of IS Success

relationships within the DMISSM and updated

DMISSM and to develop new research directions.

The review attributes a non-uniformity in the

application of the DMISSM models to the reviewed

state of research and finds that the interrelationships,

dimensionality and interdependence of DMISSM

model elements remained unspecified and

questionable. For instance, Jeyaraj also highlights the

need to investigate “Perceived usefulness”, an

antecedent element to “Intention to use” within the

renowned Technology Acceptance Model (Davis,

1989), in the context of interchangeability with

“Individual impact” in the DMISSM or “Net

Benefits” in the updated DMISSM.

In the light of such critical and contradictory

aspects that researchers have come up with regarding

DeLones and McLean’s work, the objective of this

paper should be clarified once more. It is our aim to

spark and enhance the scientific and practical

discussion around the impact of moral values in IS

design on IS Success. In the scope of this work, the

DMISSM, as a widely used and empirically

supported model (Urbach & Müller, 2012), will serve

as a structure of IS Success dimensions which may be

linked to MVISD concepts and help to explore and

propose possible implications of such relationships.

2.3 Moral Values in the Context of

Information System Design

Ethics can be understood as a theory or system of

moral values, whereas the term moral focuses on

“right” human behavior in terms of its effects on

society, persons, or organizations (Larson, 2007).

Such moral values lay within the “goodness” of

persons and the “goodness” of acts they perform,

what makes them distinguishable from technical

values which are rather related to skills and personal

characteristics (Rosanas & Velilla, 2005).

Propositions towards the Impact of Moral Values in Information System Design on Information System Success Depicted by the DeLone

McLean Information System Success Model

197

Stahl (2008, 2012) presents a categorization of

normative IS research, using normativity as an

umbrella term for ethics, morality and similar

concepts, and proposing different levels of

normativity applying to IS research on ethics. His

normativity levels are (1) moral intuition, (2) explicit

morality, (3) ethical theory and (4) meta-ethical

reflection, each of which he could identify in existing

IS research work (Stahl, 2012, p. 648). During the

present review of MVISD-related work, it could be

observed that authors indeed derive the relevancy of

moral values or the suggestion of IS design (ISD)

methodologies from different levels of ethical

discussion and analysis, as explained by Stahl. A

categorization of this kind will however be waived in

this paper, as it would be too far off its original scope.

Key papers reviewed in this section feature their

own literature reviews and provide a collection of

findings which we will consider as heuristics.

The above-mentioned PAPA paper by Mason

(1986) addressed issues connected to IS security,

governance and compliance, as in privacy, property

and access, as well as Information Quality, as in

accuracy. In the literature reviewed, some authors

linked similar concepts to a discussion of moral

values, but the outcome could not be linked to ISD.

For instance, the intention of users to act compliantly

to the IS security compliance of an organization has

been researched in relationship to severity of

punishment and certainty of detection (Ahluwalia &

Merhi, 2018; Merhi & Ahluwalia, 2019) but seems to

lack any suggestions for an implementation of the

findings in system development. Similarly, ethical

theory constructs explaining IS misuse were

presented, but no implications for IS design or

development were given (Al-Omari et al., 2012).

Bell and Adam (2004) reviewed the state of

MVISD much earlier and also criticized that much

work in the IS domain concerning moral values

concentrated on decision-making in ISD, rather than

applying a more practical view towards integrating

values. Thereby, as the authors discuss, the concept

of “good” in IS development methodologies had

become a functionalist term, separated from moral

values: “It is as if the goodness of ISD methodologies

is to be understood in functionalist terms rather than

moral terms and further underlines both the apparent

separation of ethics from other parts of life and the

lesser status of ethics within disciplines.” (Bell &

Adam, 2004, p. 7).

While Bell and Adam’s observation may be

evident for a certain range of scientific publications at

that time, they however neglected an upcoming

research trend in the “2000s”-years focusing

specifically on the embodiment of values in IS design

(Friedman, 1996; Nissenbaum, 2001), also including

moral values (Friedman & Kahn Jr, 2003), and

tackling the critical separation of functional and

moral values. The value-sensitive design (VSD)

approach by Friedman (1996) is an often-cited piece

in this context, as it was initially concerned with “user

autonomy” (see also Friedman and Nissenbaum

(1997)) and “freedom from bias” (see also

Nissenbaum (1998)) from a moral values perspective

and was later developed into an ISD methodology

(Friedman et al., 2006) featuring conceptual,

empirical and technical investigations.

The VSD conceptual investigations concern the

identification of stakeholders to the design, as well as

relevant values, while also considering value trade-

offs when competing values apply. Academic

publications of related kind had been summarized

with reference to common human values often

implicated in system design (Friedman et al., 2006,

pp. 17-18): “human welfare”, “ownership and

property”, “privacy”, “freedom from bias”,

“universal usability”, “trust”, “autonomy”, “informed

consent”, “accountability”, “courtesy”, “identity”,

“calmness”, and “environmental sustainability” (for

the latter see also Nathan et al. (2009)). Empirical

investigations were included to take into account the

human context in which the system design would be

implemented. Technical investigations finally

consider either the value-compatibility of properties

in existing technology, or the proactive value-driven

technical design of systems based on values identified

during the conceptual investigation.

Following the initial impact, the VSD

methodology by Friedman et al. (2006) was criticized

for hardly distinguishing between actual moral values

and personal preferences or wishes, also lacking a

determination of the concept of values at all, not

providing stakeholder analysis methods, relying on

empirical knowledge in design decisions and lacking

a theory for dealing with value trade-offs (Manders-

Huits, 2011). Implicitly, Manders-Huits (2011)

suggests additional criteria for VSD clearly

determining the definition of values and ethical

theory to be used, including stakeholder analysis and

introducing a values advocate to monitor the design

process.

Moreover, Borning and Muller (2012) reviewed

the state of papers following the concept of Friedman

et al. to this point of time. The authors criticized

papers claiming universality for values where there

should rather be a consideration of culturally-specific

plurality. The same critique applied for lists of values

which had been gathered in some cases for heuristic

E-DaM 2021 - Special Session on Empowering the digital me through trustworthy and user-centric information systems

198

summaries of values without explicating the specific

viewpoint under which they were developed. In

addition, they advised to amplify the participants’ and

researchers’ voices in VSD-related work, as it was

necessary to clarify the individual value sets

potentially biasing such study scenarios. They also

suggested further development steps to VSD such as

turning towards democratized user participation in

design and incorporating additional moral views from

research on feminism and post-colonialism. Davis

and Nathan (2015) took on the new suggestions and

also proposed some guiding questions for the further

development of VSD.

Norton et al. (2019) point to the aspiration of new

relevant values connected to sustainability, which

have gained importance lately. The authors conducted

an action research case study with permaculture

communities, who are highly sensitive to

sustainability. They identified long-term values

reasoning the engagement, resistance values to turn

away from unsustainable behavior and technology

values concerning the conflict with the inherent

unsustainability of technologies by nature.

Twenty years after the impact of Friedman et al.

(2006), a literature review still outlined

methodological obscurities, especially for new

researchers in the domain (Winkler & Spiekermann,

2018). Sharing more empirical knowledge about

applied VSD was implicitly encouraged. In a recent

book publication, Friedman and Hendry (2019)

present more explanations on the VSD methodology,

also reacting to the formerly uttered critique. For

instance, they reason the unclear definition of “human

values” and lack of ethical theory with better

adaptability of VSD to specific application scenarios,

thereby leaving the work of defining these aspects

more accurately to the individual researchers. For

scholars in moral and normative research like

Manders-Huits (2011), this could lead to

“dissatisfaction” regarding the underspecified

formulation of values (Friedman & Hendry, 2019, p.

24) while they still retain moral and ethical

sensibilities. Lately, a novel VSD formative

framework was proposed (Hendry et al., 2021) which

comprises knowledge from design practice, design

theory and provides translation from theory to

practice and practice to theory.

The ongoing emergence of new insights to VSD

is probably due to an overarching goal of the research

discipline to establish value-sensitivity in the minds

of IS researchers, so that “focusing design on human

values will become an accepted rather than novel

perspective” (Davis & Nathan, 2015, p. 35).

Some scientific contributions on MVISD also

document practical MVISD integration in design

processes. For instance, Larson (2007) compared

several alternative procedures of MVSID integration

after identifying an ethical gap between ethical

dimension, technology, information and participants

in an IS. His finally suggested procedure comprises

(1) intelligence, which represents problem discovery

and definition, (2) design in the sense of identifying

and exploring potential solutions, (3) choice of an

alternative, and (4) implementation. Moreover, the

reports on the RAPUNSEL studies by Flanagan et al.

(2005, 2008) set focus on examining a systematic

design approach to embodying values in system

design. A gamified environment teaching

programming skills to girls was to be designed in this

case. The designers chose a three-step-approach

(2008): (1) discovery of implicit values in a project

through reflection, (2) translation of the discovered

values through operationalization, implementation

and solving or trading-off conflicting values and (3)

verification. They draw conclusions on different

levels: first, that technologies do inherently embody

values and that values in technical systems can be

deliberately embodied; second, that they observed

“values expressed” in relation to designing the game

content and “values materially embodied” related to

the acts a person had to perform within the game.

The RAPUNSEL case and the discovery of

“materially embodied” values raise the question,

whether concepts of user-centered design (Abras et

al., 2004) are interrelated with MVISD, since

Flanagan et al. involved the user perspective in a VSD

process. The authors initially stated they did not want

to replace methodologies such as user-centered

design but wanted to “demonstrate with concrete

examples the way in which attention to values in the

design process can inform the stages of many existing

design processes” (Flanagan et al., 2005, p. 752).

2.4 Research Gap

Regarding IS Success, the significance of the

DMISSM and updated DMISSM was highlighted in

the 2.2 section. The models are adaptive to new

components and further development was

encouraged (Petter et al., 2012).

As the analysis of Jeyaraj (2020) gives away,

several authors have studied antecedents and

consequences of IS Success dimensions that

constitute of other factors than IS Success

components themselves, such as individual

characteristics, task characteristics and organizational

factors. The list of perspectives for such research

Propositions towards the Impact of Moral Values in Information System Design on Information System Success Depicted by the DeLone

McLean Information System Success Model

199

directions, represented by a table of non-IS-Success

constructs yet examined with IS Success (Jeyaraj,

2020, p. 9), shows a scarcity of DMISSM model

utilization for MVISD examination.

So far, this paper provides a heuristic overview of

existing MVISD concepts and the DMISSM in

selected literature. The findings allow for proposition

development regarding potential relationships of

MVISD and IS Success dimensions, depicted by the

updated DMISSM. Further literature review work on

MVISD literature is concurrently encouraged.

According to our analysis, IS research has not

seen a contribution on this specific relationship

between MVISD and IS Success before, which

highlights the existence of a research gap and

undermines the relevancy of addressing it on a

conference for researchers and practitioners. To be

specific about the gap being tackled, we formulate the

following research question (RQ):

How do Moral Values in Information System

Design impact Information System Success?

3 PROPOSITIONS

For the development of propositions to the RQ, the

updated DMISSM will be analyzed regarding

components which may be influenced by MVISD

aspects. The goal is to envision impacts on specific

elements of the DMISSM. DeLone and McLean

(2003) emphasized that dependent and independent

variables should not be confused when making such

suggestions, therefore IS Success will be explicitly

used as dependent variable influenced by the

independent variable MVISD.

When revising their former IS Success model,

DeLone and McLean (2003) reviewed examinations

carried out by other authors, finding that the links

between the two quality dimensions identified in

1992, as well as “System Use”, and “Individual

Impact” were preeminently found significant.

Following these findings, the authors summarized

how each Quality component and “System Use” were

measured. In addition, they adopted the measures

examined by Pitt et al. (1995) for “Service Quality”.

While far more measures were proposed due to the

high number of constructs examined with the

DMISSM by researchers in various contexts (DeLone

& McLean, 2016; Urbach & Müller, 2012), only the

core measures identified in 2003 will serve as

potentially connecting characteristics for arguing

MVISD to IS Success relationships here. Table 1 lists

these enumerated measure concepts relevant for the

updated DMISSM. With reference to the idea behind

“Net Benefits” (2003) or “Net Impacts” (2016) of

DeLone and McLean, such an entity will not be

considered here, because its measures need to be

defined according to individual contexts of System

Use, which are not specified in this paper.

As Borning and Muller (2012) suggest, allegedly

“universal” lists of values in system design may not

reflect the whole picture of considerable values in an

individual design process after all. Therefore, since

no particular ISD scenario is specified in this paper,

which would allow for a clearer delimitation, the

following discussion of propositions goes without

ascribing distinctive moral values to IS Success

Though, to propose impacts towards the

DMISSM without creating lists of values to be

compared against IS Success measures, the

formulation of moral objectives behind MVISD is

relevant. Moral objectives, in our terms, describe an

information system’s state of criteria to be fulfilled by

implementing moral values in ISD processes, which

can implicitly be ascribed to IS Success measures. For

instance, while “privacy” was identified by some

authors as a separate value (Friedman et al., 2006), it

was at the same time described as a desirable state of

“goodness” only to be achieved by the actual

integration of MVISD (Friedman, 1996; Mason,

1986; Nissenbaum, 2001; Stahl, 2012). Therefore,

“privacy” is not only considered a human value but

also, or even more, a moral objective driven by

MVISD. In consequence, regarding IS Success

entities, “privacy” could be interpretively ascribed to

“assurance” and “reliability” measuring “Service

Quality”, as well as “reliability” measuring “System

Quality”, because these measures are related to

confidentiality and information security. After all, the

first proposition can be formulated as follows:

Proposition 1: MVISD impact IS Success on a

System Quality and Service Quality level, due to

moral privacy objectives affecting system reliability

and assurance.

It is important to note that these are hypothetical

assumptions, which will be used to develop final

propositions addressing the RQ. It is up to the

research community to present other perspectives

leading to different assumptions, and to alter, validate

or build upon these propositions and the underlying

thoughts.

Continuing with the demonstrated approach, the

list of often implicated human values with ethical

import by Friedman et al. (2006, pp. 90-91) contains

more human values translatable into moral objectives,

which are supported by the related literature

reviewed. The moral objectives and IS Success

E-DaM 2021 - Special Session on Empowering the digital me through trustworthy and user-centric information systems

200

Table 1: Measures of IS Success instruments identified by DeLone and McLean (2003); Pitt et al. (1995).

measures discussed in conjunction will also be

summarized in Table 2.

The objective “freedom from bias” refers to the

avoidance of discrimination and unfairness evolving

from preexisting social or technical bias, thus

promoting fairness, equity, equality and social justice

(Friedman, 1996; Laudon & Laudon, 2017; Manders-

Huits, 2011; Nathan et al., 2009; Nissenbaum, 1998,

2001). These moral values are also entangled with the

objectives of “universal usability” and “identity”,

promoting all people to be successful users regardless

of who they are as an individual or group (Hendry et

al., 2021).

The provision of these equal opportunities

however also depends on access (Mason, 1986).

Within IS Success entities, “integration”, “ease-of-

use” and “flexibility” measuring “System Quality”

can be affected as well as “responsiveness” and

“empathy” measuring “Service Quality”, as

differences between users, scenarios of use and

individual backgrounds need to be taken into account.

Moreover, “timeliness” measuring “Information

Quality” may serve these objectives, too, as untimely

disclosure of information for certain user groups may

affect fairness. Therefore, we derive the second

proposition:

Proposition 2: MVISD impact IS Success on a

System Quality level, as the objectives of freedom

from bias, universal usability and identity impact

equal user empowerment through integration, ease-

of-use and flexibility. Moreover, Service Quality is

impacted by MVISD towards responsiveness and

empathy measures. The objectives also impact

Information Quality of IS, since equal timeliness of

information disclosure for all users demands for

consideration.

The moral objectives regarding “trust” and

“informed consent” both target the prevention of

betrayal by promoting trusted and thorough

information disclosure to achieve an informed

agreement based on voluntariness and competence.

Thereby, access to all relevant information (Mason,

1986) as well as accuracy and quality of the disclosed

data (Laudon & Laudon, 2017; Mason, 1986) are

important. ISD influenced by these objectives would

impact all measures of the “Information Quality”

entity and additionally impact “data quality”,

“reliability” and “functionality” measures of “System

Quality”, as to ensure, for example, system

availability and correct data processing. Especially

for trust and fair agreement, “assurance” measures of

“Service Quality” are impacted, too. Implicitly, the

third proposition can be made:

Proposition 3: MVISD impact IS Success on an

Information Quality level, since the objectives of trust

and informed consent affect accuracy, timeliness,

completeness, relevance and consistency of the

information providing function of IS. Furthermore,

trust and informed consent objectives can have an

effect on System Quality in terms of data quality,

reliability and functionality, besides assurance in

Service Quality.

DMISSM

entities

Information Quality System Quality Service Quality

System Use

(Intention to use, Use

and User Satisfaction)

Measures

Accuracy Integration Tangibles Frequency of use

Timeliness Ease-of-use Reliability Number of accesses

Completeness Functionality Responsiveness Time of use

Relevance Reliability Assurance Usage Pattern

Consistency Flexibility Empathy Dependency

Data quality

Portability

Importance

Propositions towards the Impact of Moral Values in Information System Design on Information System Success Depicted by the DeLone

McLean Information System Success Model

201

Table 2: Summary of propositions towards impact of MVISD objectives on IS Success entities of the DMISSM.

Proposed impact on IS Success

Prop.

Moral

Objective(s)

Derived from

Information

Quality

System

Quality

Service

Quality

System Use

(Intention to

use, Use and

User

Satisfaction

)

1 Privacy

(Friedman, 1996; Mason,

1986; Nissenbaum,

2001; Stahl, 2012)

Reliability

Reliability,

Assurance

Freedom from

bias, Universal

usability,

Identity

(Friedman, 1996; Hendry

et al., 2021; Laudon &

Laudon, 2017; Manders-

Huits, 2011; Nathan et

al., 2009; Nissenbaum,

1998, 2001

)

Timeliness

Integration,

Ease-of-use,

Flexibility

Responsiveness,

Empathy

Trust,

Informed

consent

(Laudon & Laudon,

2017; Mason, 1986)

Accuracy,

Timeliness,

Completeness,

Relevance,

Consistency

Data quality,

Reliability,

Functionality

Assurance

Information

ownership and

property rights

(Laudon & Laudon,

2017; Mason, 1986;

Stahl, 2012)

Functionality Tangibles

5 Autonomy

(Friedman, 1996;

Friedman & Kahn Jr,

2003; Friedman &

Nissenbaum, 1997)

Importance,

Portability,

Flexibility

Dependency

Environmental

sustainability

(Nathan et al., 2009;

Norton et al., 2019)

Integration,

Reliability

Tangibles,

Assurance

Frequency of

use, Number of

accesses, Time

of use, Usage

pattern,

Dependency

Concerning information rights and obligations,

another objective in MVISD concerns “ownership

and property” (Laudon & Laudon, 2017; Mason,

1986; Stahl, 2012). Following elaborations on the

philosophical roots of ownership concepts (Hart,

2002), foundations of the idea of ownership and

property are connected to land and physical objects.

Even though information and data are intangible, they

resemble the virtual form of such objects in today’s

organizations. Therefore, one can argue the impact of

this moral objective on “functionality” in “System

Quality” and “tangibles” as a measure of “Service

Quality”. Pitt et al. (1995) explain that the “tangibles”

measure could in its sense also be split into

“appearance” and “hardware/software”. So, for

instance, if a moral conflict over ownership claims

E-DaM 2021 - Special Session on Empowering the digital me through trustworthy and user-centric information systems

202

would arise in an ISD process, this could affect the

availability and quality of system features as

“tangible” parts of an IS and consequently impact IS

Success negatively. Hence, we make a fourth

proposition:

Proposition 4: MVISD impact IS Success on a

System Quality and Service Quality level, since

moral objectives considering information ownership

and property rights can affect a system’s functionality

and tangibles.

“User autonomy” is another moral objective

supported in MVISD research, referring to an

individual’s ability to autonomously decide, plan and

act as they wish to perform a certain task (Friedman,

1996; Friedman & Kahn Jr, 2003; Friedman &

Nissenbaum, 1997). In terms of autonomy from place

and resources, “portability” and “flexibility” as

measures of the “System Quality” can be affected. As

autonomy also translates to independency, the impact

on the “dependency” measure of “System Use” is

apparent. Herein lies a conflictual relationship. A

system design which follows the objective of granting

most possible autonomy to users, would actually

require a lowest possible dependency between

System Use and the accomplishment of a task. At the

same time, if users were not dependent on the use of

a system, “System Use” might decrease and thereby

impact “Net Impacts” negatively. In parallel, the

“importance” measure of “System Quality” is

additionally affected. Investigating the ideal balance

between user autonomy and system use could be a

matter of future research. Another emerging question

would be, whether “intention to use” was capable of

keeping “System Use” high regardless of a lacking

dependency. After all, the fifth proposition of this

paper can be formulated:

Proposition 5: MVISD impact IS Success on a

System Quality level in terms of user autonomy

objectives, which affects system importance, as well

as portability and flexibility as parts of System

Quality. Moreover, there is an impact on dependency

as an attribute of System Use.

The last identified moral objective in this paper

refers to “environmental sustainability”. The moral

consideration therein concerns the consequences of

acts for our natural ecosystems and future human

generations. Moral values were found connected to

sustainable innovation (Nathan et al., 2009),

sustainability engagement, resistance against

unsustainability and considerations of sustainability

(Norton et al., 2019). As Flanagan et al. (2008)

concluded, values may be technically embodied in

technologies from the start or may be embodied

deliberately during design, the latter being divided

into values expressed during the design process and

values emerging from the acts performed within the

system. Therefore, it is claimable that the

sustainability objective could impact all measures of

“System Use”, since sustainability effects can depend

on the purpose, frequency and time of use as well as

number of accesses and dependency. For instance, the

carbon footprint of video-on-demand systems has

become a public moral issue related to environmental

sustainability (BMU, 2020). Following these

concerns, “System Use" could be directly linked to

effects on climate change. In addition, the already

inherent sustainability values towards smartphone

production are part of the picture. In ISD, these

exemplary issues could be considered to minimize the

negative effects on intention to use. Consequently, the

objective also impacts measures like “tangibles” and

environmental sustainability “assurance” within the

“Service Quality” component. Furthermore, “System

Quality” can be impacted through “integration” and

“reliability”, reducing resource-costly maintenance

or the need for repair and replacement. Finally, the

sixth and last proposition can be presented:

Proposition 6: MVISD impact IS Success by

affecting System Use in consideration of

environmental sustainability objectives. Besides, the

objective impacts tangibles and assurance within

Service Quality. There are also effects on System

Quality, impacted through environmentally

sustainable system integration and reliability.

4 CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK

First of all, this paper identified a research gap

between the concept of MVISD and dimensions of IS

Success represented by DMISSMs. Following a large

number of contributions towards extending the

DMISSMs, this paper initially introduces

considerations of moral values as part of information

system to the concept of IS Success measurement.

As indicated in regards of the VSD methodology,

parts of the IS research community are striving

towards a “new normal”, which encompasses human

values in ISD with the same naturalness as yet-

adopted concepts like user-centered design (Davis &

Nathan, 2015), although both concepts may also be

interrelated. Considering the importance of IS

Success for organizations implementing IS and

technology in general (DeLone & McLean, 2016),

this input highlights the opportunity for ISD scholars

Propositions towards the Impact of Moral Values in Information System Design on Information System Success Depicted by the DeLone

McLean Information System Success Model

203

to further elaborate on the role and relevancy of moral

values within success-oriented ISD processes.

Within the boundaries of limitations, this work

provides six propositions suggesting that such

impacts exist. The implications for organizations

using IS may therefore be affected as well. However,

at this point, these effects can neither be characterized

further nor examined for significance, especially

lacking empirical input.

Future research may build upon this paper with

further contributions tackling the identified research

gap and RQ. It is also considerable to extend the

DMISSM by new entities with moral or ethical

import, or to extend the VSD methodology by an

analysis of implications for IS Success. Moreover,

tensions between moral objectives and the aim to

increase System Use for an effect on IS net impacts

demand for further investigation.

REFERENCES

Abras, C., Maloney-Krichmar, D., & Preece, J. (2004).

User-centered design. In W. Bainbridge (Ed.),

Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction (Vol.

37, pp. 445-456). Sage Publications.

Agourram, H., & Ingham, J. (2007). The impact of national

culture on the meaning of information system success

at the user level. Journal of Enterprise Information

Management, 20(6), 641-656. https://doi.org/

doi:10.1108/17410390710830709

Ahluwalia, P., & Merhi, M. (2018). Moral and Subjective

Norms: How do they Effect Information Security

Compliance? [Research in Progress]. Proceedings of

the Twenty-fourth Americas Conference on Information

Systems. https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2018/Security/

Presentations/40/

Al-Omari, A., El-Gayar, O., Deokar, A., & Walters, J.

(2012). Information Security Policy Compliance: An

Ethical Perspective. Proceedings of the 6th Midwest

Association for Information Systems Conference. 25.

Association for Information Systems.

Bell, F., & Adam, A. (2004). The Problem of Integrating

Ethics into IS Practice. ECIS 2004 Proceedings (pp. 1-

11). Association for Information Systems.

BMU, German Federal Environment Ministry. (2020).

Video streaming: data transmission technology crucial

for climate footprint. https://www.bmu.de/en/

pressrelease/video-streaming-data-transmission-

technology-crucial-for-climate-footprint/

Borning, A., & Muller, M. (2012). Next steps for value

sensitive design. Proceedings of the SIGCHI

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

(pp. 1125–1134). Association for Computing

Machinery.

Courtney, J., Merali, Y., Paradice, D., & Wynn, E. (2008).

On the Study of Complexity in Information Systems.

Int. J. Inf. Technol. Syst. Approach (1), 37-48.

https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-092-9.ch004

Cuellar, M. J., McLean, E. R., & Johnson, R. D. (2006). The

measurement of information System Use: preliminary

considerations. Proceedings of the 2006 ACM SIGMIS

CPR conference on computer personnel research:

Forty four years of computer personnel research:

achievements, challenges & the future (pp. 164-169).

Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/

10.1145/1125170.1125214

Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease

of use, and user acceptance of information technology.

MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.23

07/249008

Davis, J., & Nathan, L. P. (2015). Value Sensitive Design:

Applications, Adaptations, and Critiques. In J. van den

Hoven, P. E. Vermaas, & I. van de Poel (Eds.),

Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological

Design: Sources, Theory, Values and Application

Domains (pp. 11-40). Springer Netherlands.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_3

DeLone, W. H., & McLean, E. R. (1992). Information

Systems Success: The Quest for the Dependent

Variable. Info. Sys. Research, 3(1), 60-95.

https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.3.1.60

DeLone, W. H., & McLean, E. R. (2003, 2003/04/01). The

DeLone and McLean Model of Information Systems

Success: A Ten-Year Update. Journal of Management

Information Systems, 19(4), 9-30.

https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2003.11045748

DeLone, W. H., & McLean, E. R. (2016). Information

Systems Success Measurement. Foundations and

Trends(R) in Information Systems, 2(1), 1-116.

https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:fntisy:29000

00005

Flanagan, M., Howe, D. C., & Nissenbaum, H. (2005).

Values at play: design tradeoffs in socially-oriented

game design. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference

on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 751-

760). Association for Computing Machinery.

Flanagan, M., Howe, D. C., & Nissenbaum, H. (2008).

Embodying Values in Technology: Theory and

Practice. In J. van den Hoven & J. Weckert (Eds.),

Information Technology and Moral Philosophy (pp.

322-353). Cambridge University Press.

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498725.017

Friedman, B. (1996). Value-Sensitive Design. interactions,

3(6), 16-23. https://doi.org/10.1145/1551986.1551988

Friedman, B., & Hendry, D. (2019). Value Sensitive

Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination.

MIT Press.

Friedman, B., & Kahn Jr, P. H. (2003). Human values,

ethics, and design. In J. A. Jacko and A. Sears (eds.)

The human-computer interaction handbook (pp. 1177-

1201). Mahwah Erlbaum.

Friedman, B., Kahn Jr., P. H., & Borning, A. (2006). Value

Sensitive Design and Information Systems. In P. Zhang

& D. Galletta (Eds.), Human-Computer Interaction and

Management Information Systems: Foundations. M.E.

Sharpe.

E-DaM 2021 - Special Session on Empowering the digital me through trustworthy and user-centric information systems

204

Friedman, B., & Nissenbaum, H. (1997). Software agents

and user autonomy. Proceedings of the first

international conference on Autonomous agents (pp.

466-469). Association for Computing Machinery.

https://doi.org/10.1145/267658.267772

Hart, D. (2002). Ownership as an Issue in Data and

Information Sharing: a philosophically based review.

Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 10(1).

https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v10i1.440

Hendry, D. G., Friedman, B., & Ballard, S. (2021). Value

sensitive design as a formative framework. Ethics and

Information Technology. Springer. https://doi.org/

10.1007/s10676-021-09579-x

Hu, X., & Wu, K. (2016). Assessing Information

Technology Systems in the Environmental Arena of

China: A Validation of the Delone and Mclean

Information Systems Success Model. Proceedings of

the 17th International Digital Government Research

Conference on Digital Government Research (pp. 276-

280). Association for Computing Machinery.

https://doi.org/10.1145/2912160.2912165

Iivari, J. (2005). An Empirical Test of the DeLone-McLean

Model of Information System Success. SIGMIS

Database, 36(2), 8-27. Association for Computing

Machinery.

Jeyaraj, A. (2020, 2020/10/01/). DeLone & McLean models

of information system success: Critical meta-review

and research directions. International Journal of

Information Management, 54. https://doi.org/10.1016/

j.ijinfomgt.2020.102139

Larson, D. K. (2007). Ethics and The Information Systems

Development Professional: Bridging The Gap.

Proceedings of the Second Midwest United States

Association for Information Systems. 33. Association

for Information Systems.

Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2017). Management

Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm -

Global Edition. Vol. 15. Pearson Education.

Lehner, F., Langbauer, M., & Amende, N. (2014).

Measuring success of enterprise social software: the

case of hypervideos. Proceedings of the 14th

International Conference on Knowledge Technologies

and Data-driven Business. 3. pp. 1-9. Association for

Computing Machinery.

Manders-Huits, N. (2011). What Values in Design? The

Challenge of Incorporating Moral Values into Design.

Science and Engineering Ethics, 17(2), 271-287.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9198-2

Mason, R. O. (1986). Four Ethical Issues of the Information

Age. MIS Quarterly, 10(1), 5-12. https://doi.org/

10.2307/248873

Merhi, M. I., & Ahluwalia, P. (2019, 2019/03/01/).

Examining the impact of deterrence factors and norms

on resistance to Information Systems Security.

Computers in Human Behavior, 92, 37-46.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.10.031

Nathan, L., Friedman, B., & Hendry, D. (2009).

SUSTAINABLY OURS Information system design as

catalyst: human action and environmental

sustainability. interactions, 16(4), 6–11. https://doi.org/

10.1145/1551986.1551988

Nissenbaum, H. (1998). The cutting edge. SIGCAS Comput.

Soc., 28(1), 38–39. https://doi.org/10.1145/277351.27

7359

Nissenbaum, H. (2001). How computer systems embody

values. Computer, 34(3), 119–120.

https://doi.org/10.1109/2.910905

Norton, J., Penzenstadler, B., & Tomlinson, B. (2019).

Implications of Grassroots Sustainable Agriculture

Community Values on the Design of Information

Systems. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-

Computer Interaction, 3(CSCW), Article 34.

Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/

10.1145/3359136

Petter, S., DeLone, W., & McLean, E. R. (2012). The Past,

Present, and Future of “IS Success”. Journal of the

Association for Information Systems, 13(5), Article 2.

Association for Information Systems. https://aisel.ais

net.org/jais/vol13/iss5/2

Pitt, L. F., Watson, R. T., & Kavan, C. B. (1995). Service

Quality: a measure of information systems

effectiveness. MIS Quarterly, 19(2). 173-187.

doi.org/10.2307/249687

Rosanas, J. M., & Velilla, M. (2005). The Ethics of

Management Control Systems: Developing Technical

and Moral Values. Journal of Business Ethics, 57(1),

83-96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-004-3826-1

Snyder, H. (2019). Literature review as a research

methodology: An overview and guidelines. Journal of

Business Research, 104, 333-339. https://doi.org/

10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.039

Stahl, B. (2008). Researching Ethics and Morality in

Information Systems: Some Guiding Questions.

Proceedings of the Twenty Ninth International

Conference on Information Systems. 175. Association

for Information Systems.

Stahl, B. (2012). Morality, Ethics and Reflection: A

categorisation of Normative IS Research. Journal of the

Association for Information Systems, 13(8), 636-656.

Association for Information Systems.

Twine, A., & Brown, I. (2011). Evaluating web

conferencing tool effectiveness. Proceedings of the

South African Institute of Computer Scientists and

Information Technologists Conference on Knowledge,

Innovation and Leadership in a Diverse,

Multidisciplinary Environment (pp. 239-248).

Association for Computing Machinery.

https://doi.org/10.1145/2072221.2072249

Urbach, N., & Müller, B. (2012). The Updated DeLone and

McLean Model of Information Systems Success. In Y.

K. Dwivedi, M. R. Wade, & S. L. Schneberger (Eds.),

Information Systems Theory: Explaining and

Predicting Our Digital Society, Vol. 1 (pp. 1-18).

Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-

4419-6108-2_1

Urbach, N., Smolnik, S., & Riempp, G. (2009). The State

of Research on Information Systems Success. Business

& Information Systems Engineering, 1(4), 315-325.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-009-0059-y

Visser, M., van Biljon, J., & Herselman, M. (2012).

Propositions towards the Impact of Moral Values in Information System Design on Information System Success Depicted by the DeLone

McLean Information System Success Model

205

Modeling management information systems' success: a

study in the domain of further education and training.

Proceedings of the South African Institute for Computer

Scientists and Information Technologists Conference

(pp. 384-393). Association for Computing Machinery.

https://doi.org/10.1145/2389836.2389881

Winkler, T., & Spiekermann, S. (2018, 2018/08/21).

Twenty years of value sensitive design: a review of

methodological practices in VSD projects. Ethics and

Information Technology (pp. 1-5). Springer.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9476-2

E-DaM 2021 - Special Session on Empowering the digital me through trustworthy and user-centric information systems

206