Abstract:

Management Information System (MIS) plays an important role in the processing and management of the organisation’s entire flow of information. As a technological tool, MIS has proved to have been one of the key functions of any organisation as it integrates the entire performance units of an organisation, improving in the entire managerial performance ranging from strategic decision making to result based implementation. However, the challenge at Mbabane Municipality in Swaziland has been that of the organisation’s poor management of the MIS which has also resulted into lack of organisational efficiency among many other drawbacks. The key objectives for the study included the following: the examination of the relevance of MIS at the Mbabane Municipality, the examination of the limitations of MIS, as well as the identification of factors that influenced the success of MIS at the Mbabane Municipality.

The population for this study was made of all the employees at Mbabane municipal council. However, it is estimated that Mbabane municipality has about 1,000 (one thousand) employees in general. This study used a simple random sampling technique since it was a quantitative research and the total number of participants to be selected was 112 employees of Mbabane Municipality who were randomly picked. Therefore, the researcher selected the participants randomly on the basis of voluntary. The participants were randomly selected to take part in the study according to their degree of willingness. Data was collected and analysed according to the quantitative methodology which was descriptive in nature using questionnaires. The analysis of the data was however done with the help of Microsoft excel spread sheet which presented the findings in form of bar charts and figures.

The findings of the study established that there was a positive impact of MIS on employee job performance at Mbabane Municipality. Considering the factors that influenced the successful use of MIS at the work place, the study found that all the factors namely: limited user’s ability and training, organisation readiness to deal with changes, effective communication, top Management support, and employees’ involvement were considered to key determinants in influencing the successful use of MIS at Mbabane Municipality. However, among these factors, Organisation readiness to deal with changes, and employee involvement were the most highly considered ones. The recommendations for the study were as follows: the improvement of employees, improvement of managing organisational information, promotions of employee involvement, and promotion of organisational involvement.

Keywords:

Management Information System, Job Performance, Strategic Decision Making, Effective Communication, Organisational Readiness.