The partnership between Norzaidi Mohd Daud, Ph.D, from the Faculty of Business Management and Intan Salwani Mohamed from the Faculty of Accountancy has led to the development of TECHPROVED^TMSystem, a new business information technology system that could prove to be the way forward for detecting user resistance to technology and other IT usage problems.

Today more than ever, the momentum for employing emerging technologies to ensure more efficient delivery systems is building throughout industry and government. No one wants to be left behind and huge investments are made to acquire new information technology systems to this end. These investments, however, involve a complex mixture of technological, managerial and policy related challenges. Such investments often fail to live up to expectations if these risks are not fully understood or addressed in the first place. When this happens,  policy makers need to know what went wrong but few have the resources to accurately and continuously evaluate the problem.

The Business-Accountancy research duo has shown how to get around this problem by developing TECHPROVED^TMSystem, a system based on their research on IT implementation in the Malaysian port industry. The study involving 357 middle managers from the port authority, immigration, customs and marine departments, incorporated three levels of analysis. Specifically, they sought to identify the perception of the middle managers on the effects of IT usage, examine the relationships between variables such as technology characteristics, task characteristics, task-technology fit, perceived usefulness, perceived resistance, user resistance, user satisfaction and the level of impact of the said variables on performance.