The influence of information technology is being felt throughout modern organizations, from the senior management level to line management to various clerical and support group levels. As IT has grown in sophistication along a broad range of technical aspects and features, organizational personnel have witnessed changes in organizational life and ways of doing business that have transformed their thinking about what it means to contribute effectively and efficiently to the well-being of their organizations. The Human Side of Information Technology Management provides valuable insight into many of the issues of the human side of information technology management, a side of IT impact that many experts feel has been underestimated or pushed aside by too much concern given to the technological side of IT. Read this book and learn about: user satisfaction with information systems; impacts of office automation on employees; uses of computer-generated communication; the role of national culture and IT; and many more human-related issues of IT...
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Edward J. Szewczak is a professor and Chair of the MCIS Department at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He received a Ph.D. in MIS from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985. His information systems research has been published in Data Base, European Journal of Operational Research, Information & Management, Information Resources Management Journal, Journal of Management Systems, Journal of Microcomputer Systems Management, Journal of MIS, Omega, and Simulation & Games as well as in a number of readings texts and scholarly conference proceedings. He has also coedited two books of readings entitled Management Impacts of Information Technology: Perspectives on Organizational Change and Growth (1991) The Human Side of Information Technology Management (1996), and Measuring Information Technology Investment Payoff: A Contemporary Approach (1999) published by Idea Group Publishing of Hershey, PA. He is currently an associate editor of the Information Resources Management Journal.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Technological advances of the past several decades have created many opportunities for organizations in the utilization of information technology (IT) for a variety of applications. During this period, computer technologies have assisted the manufacturing segments of the U.S. economy by increasing the productivity of manufacturing workers by approximately 300 percent. This was achieved by the utilization of different computer technologies in support of production and operations.
While the use of computer technology has proven to be beneficial to blue color workers, the overall utilization and management of this technology in support of administrative operations have not shown the same significant results as reported in the manufacturing segment. Some estimates indicate that during the past several decades, the use of IT by white color workers has resulted in only a 3 percent increase in productivity.
Despite the availability of this technology, many organizations are still striving to deal with the problems related to the human aspects of this technology. Primarily these problems can be explained by management's lack of emphasis and commitment to the human side of IT. Generally organizations invest a great deal of their resources to obtain the necessary hardware and software technologies with insignificant investment in the human aspect of technology.
Organizations must understand that there are a vast number of information resources, particularly human resources, while recognizing the potential of this technology in support of managerial activities. The days of identifying computer-based information systems as only a collection of hardware and software are gone. In order to be able to achieve greater utilization of this technology, there must be much more emphasis given to the value of individuals who handle and use information resources.
Commitments to the human element should not be limited to user involvement in planning and implementation of this technology. Instead, commitments should be toward user training and support. It should not be surprising to anyone that on average organizations spend approximately 90 percent of their total budgets for developing information systems on hardware and software acquisition and deployment and less than 5 percent in support of human related programs.
Before committing additional investments for more hardware and software technologies, managers must assess the current value of IT in their organizations from the human point of view. Management must understand how it has been utilized, and understand the value of its utilization. In support of this notion, institutions (public, private, educational) and all other parties involved must work together to expand the body of knowledge regarding the human element of IT management.
This book chooses to emphasize the human side of IT. It does not attempt to canvas the entire spectrum of topics and issues relevant to the human side of IT. Such an undertaking would be enormous, since people seem to relate to IT in ways that reflect the whole range of behaviors identifiable as human (including love, hate, fear, anger, jealousy and lust - behavior not (yet) observed in IT). Rather the chapters included in this book represent the work of current researchers in the field of IT who appreciate the relevance of the human side of IT. The researchers represent scholars from Canada, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the United States. The papers reflect a good cross-section of the work currently being done in the field. Among the topics addressed in the papers are IT implementation, the role of attitude toward IT, culture and IT, the impact of IT on health and privacy, personality and IT, group work and IT, and ethics and IT.
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