Perennial management data systems issues in US manufacturing firms

Based on a survey of manufacturing firms, with a questionnaire based on issues identified repeatedly in earlier studies, this paper details the most important information systems issues for a sample of US manufacturing firms. The top four issues were found to be data resources, competitive advantage, end‐user computing, and aligning the IS organization. The common thread among all top issues is a focus external to the IS organization, either enterprise‐wide issues or issues that transcend the boundary of the firm. A factor analysis of the data found an underlying three‐factor structure: enterprise‐wide issues, IS functional issues, and applications issues.