THE EFFECT OF THE SUCCESS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGYON THE QUALITY OF WORKING LIFE OF THE STAFF IN INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS IN IRAN

We examined the influence of the success of Information Technology (IT) on the Quality of Working Life (QWL). We first explored the success dimensions of IT/IS and also dimension of QWL. Then, we proposed a new model – managing IT for improving QWL model to explain and predict the influence of IT’s success on employees’ QWL. Drawing on the previous literature, and the results of a series of case studies, the managing of IT to improve the QWL model, integrates several sets of factors that are influencing the improvement of QWL: organizational factors; quality of IT; employees’ attitudes to IT; employees’ use of IT; perceived usefulness of IT and QWL. These sets of factors are drawn from well-established frameworks (IS’s implementation, IS’s success and TAM models). Results from a survey involving 299 IT users in semnan province (Iran) indicate that a positive relationship exists between IT’s success and QWL. The analysis provided strong support for the model, with 15 of 17 hypotheses which are supported. Path analysis was also used to test the research model. The study used theoretical and empirical evidence to propose a model and then validate it by using quantitative data from industrial organizations in Semnan. Finally the model was validated by path analysis.


Introduction
IT is a universal technology and it influences all aspects and functions of organizations and has the potential to change the social and economical conditions of nations and countries (Avgerou, 2000). On the other hand, every organization, whether it is a multinational conglomerate, a small business, a religious institution, or government agency, depends on people. The key to success in this economy depends on the knowledge of the people: the reputation and greatness of organizations and big companies, is not more than the sum of the physical asset, but also by having a staff with knowledge and the required skills. Thus, people play a vital role in any organization's ability to meet its goals, so it follows that assuring a high quality of work life is vital to attract and keep talented people, as well as in achieving better organizational performance.

Problem Statement
Both academics and practitioners recognize that the success of information technology can potentially be measured through its impact on work at the level of the individual end-user (Torkzadeh & Doll, 1998). As systems and technologies are being improved and developed, discussions on their effectiveness and evaluation on their success have been continuously debated ** by researchers, scholars and practitioners, therefore it is becoming necessary to investigate the effects of IT on QWL and measuring of the success of information technology through its impact on work at the level of the individual end-user in order to improve their QWL. Although extensive research has been conducted in investigating the Information Technology's impact on organization performance, employee's work and performance and also on IS/IT, success, little research has addressed the impact of IT or IT,s success systems on QWL and how managing of IT for improving the QWL. The present study has been endeavoured to fill this gap in the literature. The Industrial organizations in Semnan have invested enormous amount of funds in developing IT and they are concerned about what the impact of their investment can be on the individual and his/her performance and how this impact will be measured. For the convenience of sampling and the researcher's access to the subject, Semnan as an Industrial province was selected. In this research, there are two main questions: 1.
What is the effect of IT's success on the QWL of employees in industrial organization in Semnan and how can this impact be measured? 2.
How can the industrial organizations in Semnan use Information Technology in order to improve the Quality of working Life of their employees?

Objective of The Study
The main objective of this study is to develop a model for managing Information Technology in order to improve the QWL and to investigate the relationship between IT's success and the Quality of working life in the context of Semnan's industrial organizations' environment. In fact, we are looking into identifying the relationship between IT's success and the QWL in order to see how the success of Information Technology contributes to employees' QWL.

Review of Literature
The success of the Information system success models: IS's success is a multi-dimensional concept that can be assessed at various levels, the measure for IS's success has neither been totally clear nor exactly defined (Wu & Wang, 2006).Various generic models for assessing the success of information system have existed (Namakula & Kituyi, 2014). The DeLone& McLean (1992) model is one of the most widely cited IS's success models (Myers, Kappelman, 1997&Heo& Han, 2003 and much of the work done in IS's success has its origin in this model (Elpez& Fink, 2006). Numerous studies have since been sought to extend and/or validate this framework. The information system's implementation (ISI) model: Implementation processes affect a new system's acceptance in the workplace. The ISI model (Land 1994) is based upon research that is designed to identify the factors that are most important in determining a user group's successful adoption of a new system. Land's model recognizes that the introduction of a technological innovation is essentially an altered process that requires planning and managing, and is affected by six groups of factors: Motivation for introducing the new system, Commitment to the system, Organizational culture, the management of the implementation process, the 'distance' between the existing system and the replacement system, and the technology itself.
The Technology acceptance model: The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) aims to predict and explain the users ''intention to use'' by understanding factors which lead users to accepting or rejecting an IS (Gros & others, 2005). Among the different models proposed, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis 1989) appears to be the most widely accepted among the information system researchers (Mathieson, 1991;Davis & Venkatesh, 1996;Gefen& Straub, 2000;Wang, 2003). TAM proposes that the two particular constructs which are of primary significance for IS/IT acceptance. The Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease Of Use (PEOU), affect user's' attitude towards using the information system. Attitude is directly related to user's intention, which will in turn determine the usage of the system. Perceived Usefulness is defined as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance" (Davis 1989). Perceived Ease Of Use is defined as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from the usage of efforts" (Davis, 1989).
Quality of working Life: QWL is a very important concept of favourable situation in a working environment ( Vijaimadhavan & Raju, 2013). The phrase "Quality of working Life" (QWL) has come into use recently to evoke a broad range of working conditions and the related aspirations and expectations of the employees. The QWL can be described as, the subjectively perceived satisfaction with one's different aspects of working life as reported by the individual (Swarnalatha, 2014).Quality of working Life (QWL) refers to the favourableness or unfavourableness of a job environment for people (Newstrom & Davis, 1993).
In this research the model purposed by Walton (1973) will be the basic referential to analyze dimensions of QWL. This is because of its amplitude. Also, we will try to use other models but under Walton's basic model The social relevance of working life: employees who feel that their organization is acting in a socially responsible manner. How does the worker perceive the social responsibility of the organization: products, waste disposal, marketing and selling techniques, employment practices, relations to underdeveloped countries, participation in political campaigns, attitude to laws, and so on?

Conceptual Model
The research model was adapted by Information System's success models, information system's implementation (ISI) model, Technology acceptance model and Walton's Quality of Work Life model. Neither of them covers all of the issues that our study has identified as the managing of IT for the improvement of the improved QWL. DeLone et al. (2003) noted that the IS's Success model has been criticized for not incorporating management control variables such as user's involvement and top management support. The ISS model also considers only the quality influences on the intention to use, and the use. These limitations made it necessary to draw upon all the three models in order to assemble a framework that could explain the factors influencing IT's success at the organizations of our research work. This integrated model -which we have titled as the managing of IT for the improvement of the QWL model -is shown in Figure1 Organizational factors: In an organizational context, organizational environment and IT management are of importance. It therefore stands to reason that organizational factors are additional dimensions to consider in addition to the traditional dimensions of system quality, information quality, user satisfaction, perceived usefulness, and use.
In this study, with the consideration of the ISI model, the review of literature, and the research α the usefulness and the informativeness to clarity, content, accuracy, and completeness (Jennex & others, 1998).
System quality: System quality describes how good the system is in terms of its operational characteristics (Jennex & others, 1998). System quality is related to the quality of the system that produces information output, and this can be measured in terms of reliability, accessibility, integration, and response time, adaptability, usability, turnaround time, completeness, system flexibility, ease of use, safety, integrity and security ( Irwin & Jayakody, 2008;Nelson, 2005;chandio, 2008).
Service quality: The overall support delivered by the service provider, applies regardless of whether this support is delivered by the IS department, a new organizational unit, or is outsourced to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) (DeLone and McLean, 2003). Parasuraman (1998) developed an instrument, named SERVQUAL, for measuring service quality.
The five factors included in SERVQUAL are: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy.
H9 : There is a positive and significant relationship between Quality of IT and Employee's attitudes to IT. H10: There is a positive and significant relationship between Quality of IT and Employee's usage of IT. H11: There is a positive and significant relationship between Quality of IT and Perceived usefulness of IT. H12: There is a positive and significant relationship between the Quality of IT and the Quality of Working Life.
Employee's attitude to IT: Attitude is "the degree of evaluative affect that an individual associates with the using of the target system" (Davis, 1993). It represents what a person feels about a concept, which may be any entity about which the persons can think and attach their feeling (East, 1997). In this research, Employees' attitude to aim, we also used organizational environment and IT management processes as a measure of organizational factors.
As the system's implementation is based on management responsibility and organizational environment, we have named this part of the model as organizational factors. In fact, we have changed the ISI model to organizational factors. We have grouped organizational culture, interaction among units, power and politic of the organization, and commitment of the organization to IT/IS in its organizational environment. Thus, in this construct we have added the interaction among units, and the power and politic of the organization.
We have omitted motivation for the introduction in the new system, because this is evinced through the employees' attitudes to IT. We have renamed the "management of the implementation process" as "IT management processes".
In this study we will only concern ourselves with the areas relating to employee's aspect.
H4 : There is a positive and significant relationship between Organization factors and Quality of IT. H5 : There is a positive and significant relationship between Organization factors and Employee's attitudes to IT. H6 : There is a positive and significant relationship between Organization factors and Employees' usage of IT. H7 : There is a positive and significant relationship between Organization factors and Perceived usefulness of IT. H8 : There is a positive and significant relationship between Organization factors and Quality of Working Life.
Information quality: Information quality is highlighted by DeLone& McLean (1992) as an important indicator of IS's success. Information quality defines how good the system is in terms of its output. Factors in this category span a broad range from the importance, the relevance, Instrumentation: The survey method was used for collecting data. Although most of the information related to IT users was collected through interviews, these interviews were carried out based on the questionnaires. The general contents of the survey questions were divided into two groups: the demographic and, the attitudinal questions. The survey involved 299 IT users in industrial organizations of the Semnan province of Iran. The attitudinal questions attempted to reveal the viewpoints, opinions, and the perceptions of the interviewees with respect to the different dimensions and variables of the QWL and IT. The Likert scale has been utilized to measure the interviewees' attitudes. Many standard questionnaires regarding IT and QWL were investigated in order to derive a usable questionnaire for this research.
The reliability of the questionnaire in this study has been assessed by cronbach's alpha, which is an appropriate criterion for evaluating the reliability of the measurement tools. Through a pre-test and by the use of SPSS package and cronbach test, the total reliability of questionnaire was determined, as presented in table 2.
Validity: The validity of questionnaire in this research has been obtained by the examination of the experts' viewpoints (content validity) and the use of the standard questionnaires.
Statistical population, sampling approach and the size of sample: The questionnaires were distributed to 299 IT user during 2011and 2012. The statistical population of this research involves all IT users of the private companies in Semnan province. The total number of users is nearly 1350 people. The Stratified random sampling method is employed in this study. When the individuals in the population are not homogenous and sub-groups with in-group homogeneity exist, then the random approaches are not effective. In such populations, the Stratified random sampling method must be used. In this approach, the people in the population are divided into different groups, based on their in-group characteristics and sample people are selected from different stages, IT refers to employee's belief in whether IT can improve their job conditions, performance and also the organizational performance or not.
H13: There is a positive and significant relationship between Employees' attitudes to IT the and Employees usage of IT. H14: There is a positive and significant relationship between the Employees' attitudes to IT and the Quality of Working Life.
Employees' usage of IT: The usage of Information refers to the utilization of the outputs of the system. This construct is most applicable as a success measure when the use of a system is voluntary (Jennex&others, 1998). H15: There is a positive and significant relationship between the Employees' usage of IT and the Quality of Working Life.
Perceived usefulness of IT: Rai (2002) in validating the Seddon (1997) model demonstrated that perceived usefulness positively influences the user's satisfaction with an information system. Perceived Usefulness (PU) can be defined as "the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his/her job performance" (Davis, 1989).
H16: There is a positive and significant relationship between the Perceived usefulness of IT and the Employee's attitudes to IT. H17: There is a positive and significant relationship between the Perceived usefulness of IT and the Quality of working Life.

Research Methodology
Due to the advantages presented by the of path analysis method and the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), these approaches are adopted to analyze the statistical data.
proportionally (Hafezniya, 2002). Stratified random sampling is a modification of random sampling in which the population is divided into two or more relevant and significant strata based on one or a number of the attributes(Saunders and Thornhill2003).
The sample size is computed, based on the following formula: N t 2 P(p-1) n = Based on the output of LISREL, the residuals, modification indices, expected changes, and standardized expected change provide information about the sources of the model's lack of fit. LISREL suggests that the fit of the initial model would be improved substantially by making some negative covariance between variables. Therefore, the final model comes up with a good fit by removing the Employees' attitudes to IT (EAIT) indicator due to EAIT being not significant (figure 2).

Examining the impact of IT's success systems on the QWL by SEM
Confirmatory Factor Analysis: In developing and conducting the CFA of this study, the research design followed the four stages characteristic of most applications of SEM, based on the suggestions of Bollen and Long (1993): (1) model specification, (2)   In summary, assessing the model fit is based on (1) whether the final model fit better than the initial model, and (2) whether the model provides a good fit to the data (see Table 5). The initial model falls in the category of a "modest" fit to the data. That is, the RMR, GFI, PNFI, and PGFI. The final (modified) model falls in the category of a "reasonable and good" fit to the data. That is, the RMR, standardized RMR, RMSEA, GFI, IFI, CFI, PNFI, PGFI, AIC, and CAIC all indicate a good fit to the data; the X2 and P value are close to the marginal.
In the final model (see Table 4), the success Information Technology has a significant effect (standardized? = 0/52) on the QWL.

Model modification
In order to improve the fit of the original theoretical model, given that all the estimated parameters are significant, theory trimming (i.e., deleting non significant paths) seems to be a viable option (Pedhazur, 1982). Theory building (i.e., adding parameters based on the empirical results) also remains an option.  determine which factor has more effect. Initial model of path analysis with T-values shows that whether the relations between variables are significant or not. Quantity less than 2 (Tvalue < 2) means that there is no signification relationship between the variables.
In figure 3 T-value < 2 is shown with red colour to indicate the lack of significant relation between the variables.
With regard to figure 3 Organization factors has a significant effect (t-value = 3.39) on Employees' usage of IT and effect (T-value = 2.94) on Perceived usefulness of IT, Organization factors also has a bi-directional relationship (T-value = 7.43). IT Quality has an effect (T-value = 2.10) on Perceived usefulness of IT, and an effect (T-value = 2.68) on QWL. Employees' attitudes to IT has an effect on Perceived usefulness of IT (t-value = 5.27), Employees' usage of IT has an effect on QWL (T-value = 4.68) and Perceived usefulness of IT has an effect on QWL (t-value = 3.85). Also with reference to figure … there is no significant relationship between Organization factors with Employees' attitudes to IT and direct relationship with QWL. There is no significant relationship between IT with Employees' attitudes to IT, Employee's attitudes to IT with Employees' usage of IT, and Employees' usage of IT with Perceived usefulness of IT.

Testing Model
The initial model of managing IT to improve QWL has a good fit. That is, Degree of Freedom     variables. The initial model therefore has df = 0.
The final (modified) model has df = 4.  Path analysis was used to test the research model -managing IT for improving the QWL-. The study used theoretical and empirical evidence to propose a model and then validate it by using quantitative data from industrial organizations in Semnan. The model was validated by path analysis and showed the framework which suggests the factors of the information systems which impact the service quality directly and the factors that impact it indirectly. The results have demonstrated that the quality of the system, the quality of the information, and employee's IS characteristics influence employee's IS performance, which, in turn, affects the quality of the service quality. Therefore, it is important to note that a change in the QWL of employees can be a result of the effects of the quality of the information, the quality of the system, or employee's IS characteristics on employee's IS performance. On a side note, technical support has shown to have a direct effect on the quality of the service.

Contributions and Implications
This study provides several important implications for IT/IS's success in research and management. A primary aim of our work was to initiate a stream of work to develop and validate a generic instrument for measuring the Its' success and the QWL.
This research represents a significant effort at integrating varied but complementary literature as well as, to develop a theory in a new and important area of IT research. It is hoped that the results will advance the understanding in this area of IT research, i.e. managing information technology for the QWL. The research also attempts to provide insight for IT professionals on how to manage information technology in order to improve the QWL in their organizations.
Results of the current study reflect a favourable view of the impact of IT on the QWL. The measures and variables included in the model represent a sample of the many variables and constructs available to researchers at IT and QWL.
In fact, the results of the study can provide managers with useful information about the planning of IT for improving the QWL .The present study has proposed and validated an integrative and parsimonious framework that not only explains the impact that information Technology has on the QWL, but also provides a framework that might be used, with some modification, to explain the impact that Information Technology has on the QWL in other industries.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
Limitations: The investigation of IT's success on the QWL is relatively new. The discussed findings and their implications were obtained from one single study that examined some particular components of IT's success and the QWL and targeted IT users in the industrial organizations in one province of Iran only. Thus, caution needed in generalizing these findings, or in relating them to a discussion of other organizations.
Since surveying on the effect of IT's success on the QWL is new, we lack previous studies and secondary materials. Also, IT/IS's success is widely acknowledged as difficult to measure. Hence, there is no single standardized measure for IT/IS's success, and it is therefore difficult to identify the full dimensions of IT/IS's success and the causal relationship between them.
Suggestions: While this study presents some interesting findings, it has some obvious limitations which can be addressed in future research: -The empirical model proposed in this work is a preliminary method that requires extra testing. Additional research efforts are needed to evaluate the validity of the investigated model. For example longitudinal evidence might enhance our understanding of the causality and interrelationships between variables of IT's success and their effects on the QWL.
The sample used here was from Iran. It may be possible that the findings could be extrapolated to other countries: in future research, a sampling frame that combines firms from different countries could be used in order to provide a more international perspective view on the subject.
In this study we have used Confirmatory factor analysis for variables of IT and the QWL; it may be better to use Exploratory factor analysis to determine the IT and the QWL variables in other studies.