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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/09593849610129095. When citing the article, please cite: Melih Kirlidog, (1996), “Information technology transfer to a developing country: Executive information systems in Turkey”, Information Technology & People, Vol. 9 Iss: 3, pp. 55 - 84.

The paper seeks to provide some insight into the sharp increase in scientific publications originating from Turkish academic and research institutions in the last few years. The underlying reasons – widespread access to literature through electronic databases being the most important – are also investigated.

Although it is difficult to gauge national scientific productivity, the number of publications in electronic databases that index thousands of scientific journals can give some indication. Web of Science is one of these, and it is provided to the Turkish academic community along with several other databases by the national library consortium. Based on the Web of Science data, a comparative analysis was performed to investigate publications originating from Turkey and other countries.

The analysis revealed a sharp increase in publications from Turkish institutions in the last few years. Considering the highest publishing 30 countries out of 190, the increase between 2001 and 2003 is 53.48 percent for Turkey, followed by 34 percent for China and 26.87 percent for South Korea.

Although one of the largest databases was analyzed, it is only one of several. Additionally, there are also several other indicators of scientific productivity such as books published and citations received.

The paper provides some insight into the importance of library consortia and the efficient literature access they provide to researchers.

Notes that, like the technology itself, almost all research in information systems originates in Western countries, particularly the USA, where conditions are very different from developing countries. In order to examine the implications of transferring information technology to the developing countries, identifies four Turkish organizations which had pioneered executive information systems (EIS). Conducts extensive interviews with both the executive users and the support staff explaining that the scarcity of EIS applications in the country required such a qualitative case‐study approach. Observes that conditions in developing countries are greatly different from those of developed countries, and the reasons for research into such differences in conditions are manifold, the maturity level of IT and the sociocultural environment being the most important aspects. Concludes that the cultural environment has very important implications for organizational and managerial practices as well as for the implementation of information technologies which attempt to provide increasingly close support to managerial decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the web‐based tax filing systems of Turkey and South Korea. The comparison is based on user satisfaction which has parameters such as ease of work, adequacy of the amount of information, display speed, convenience to life, job productivity, and help service.

The tax filing systems are presented along with a background of such systems and their usability parameters. The survey instrument that has been prepared for gauging user satisfaction was applied to the users in both countries. The statistical analyses of the results are performed through t‐test and stepwise regression.

The study shows that users in the two countries felt differently in such factors as ease of work, adequacy of the amount of information, display speed, convenience to life, job productivity, and help service. Although Turkey has a complex tax system Turkish users did not find the tax filing system difficult to use and that may be attributable to the fact that they are accounting professionals who frequently use the system.

Electronic tax filing is an important e‐government application that has become increasingly common all over the world. Beyond the usual benefits of e‐government such as reducing transaction costs and providing convenience, electronic tax filing systems are particularly useful for governments to avoid tax evasion and errors. Although, by definition, web‐based tax filing systems of different countries have to be different, universal design parameters of each system and the resulting user satisfaction levels may provide guidelines for new systems.

Unlike other types of information systems, which have been comparatively analyzed in the context of more than one country, this is not applicable to e‐government systems. To the authors' knowledge the present article is the first attempt to compare and analyze two countries' different e‐government systems.