Communications - June 2008

management must know the value of the added information (provided by the IT marketing personnel who learn it from users) and the cost of the development (provided by IT R&D). It is then able to use the predicted added value the additional information provides (cost/benefit analysis) to support informed go/no-go decisions. Promoting the information component of IT could refocus IT on its information-services origins. Analysts would be expected to identify information needs and how they help users and their organizations generate business value. Having analysts focus on these needs also

entered the information into the spreadsheets. Other users were not aware of the system’s ability to manage information for quality-assurance purposes and handled the information manually. One underlying factor was that IT personnel thought more about technological solutions than about the organization’s information needs and their business implications. Trust was ultimately established between users and IT once a particular project leader taught IT to concentrate on users’ business needs and avoid purely technological terminology. Consequently, the users learned more about IT and the business information

IT personnel must learn to interact with users to identify information needs

without mentioning the latest technical enhancement.

means less user involvement with technology per se.

IT departments often move directly to technological solutions without first understanding users’ business responsibilities. Such haste inevitably exposes users to “solutions” to “problems” they don’t necessarily have. Thus, IT may underserve its constituents by focusing instead on the technological fulfillment of processes and tasks, inevitably weakening the IT-user relationship. Meanwhile, users are unable to take responsibility for their own information needs when IT personnel confuse business information with technology [ 3]. As reflected in the popular business media [ 2], top executives in many companies fail to recognize IT’s hidden value because they see only technology.

We documented such a dysfunctional relationship in our 2004–2005 case study. The company’s CIO identified a gap between IT and users who did not utilize all the potential features of the company’s technology and worse did not trust the IT unit. Consequently, the company suffered from an inability to address its information needs. For example, in one plant users did not know they could download information directly from a central database for use in Excel spreadsheets. Instead, they printed hard-copy reports from the ERP system, then manually

benefits it was designed to provide.

IT professionals should be aware of their responsibility for supporting their organizations’ information needs through technology. It is the information, not the technology, they value, using it to increase their own personal value to the organization. ^c

REFERENCES

1. Applegate, L., Austin, R., and McFarlan, F. Corporate Information Strategy and Management. McGraw-Hill Irwin, New York, 2007.

2. Basu, A. and Jarngin, C. How to tap IT’s hidden potential. Wall Street Journal (Mar. 10, 2008), R4.

3. Licker, P. User responsibility redux. Journal of Information Technology Cases, Applications, and Research 9, 2 (Apr. 2007), 1– 4.

4. Swartz, J. Technology troubles set off tantrums, tears, and tirades. USAToday (Nov. 10, 2006); www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-11- 05-tech-support_x.htm?csp= 34.

ARIK RAGOWSKY ( aragowsky@gmail.com) is an associate professor of MIS and director of the Manufacturing Information Systems Center at Wayne State University, Detroit.

PAUL S. LICKER ( licker@oakland.edu) is a professor of MIS at Oakland University, Rochester, MI. DAVID GEFEN ( gefend@drexel.edu) is an associate professor of MIS at Drexel University, Philadelphia.