Information Literacy and Scholarship, Practice, and Leadership in It Management
Information Literacy and Scholarship, Practice, and Leadership in IT Management R. Dannels University of Phoenix IT (Information Technology) management entails all the routine issues faced by any type of business manager in addition to the issues of software development, technology purchasing (not necessarily physical items), systems integration, the limits of technology and the related budgetary issues.
General information literacy is important for any level of IT manager, as he or she needs to communicate successfully using many different modes, media, and technology with all types of IT workers, upper management, and technology product vendors. IT management also entails leadership of projects or departments. Information literacy is complex and related to the scholarship, practice and leadership (SPL) model as described in UOP (2011). Increasingly, IT workers are coming from foreign countries and bring various cultures, languages and attitudes to an organization.
The management in such a situation needs to be aware of those cultural realities and how to modify approaches and understand responses during management activities. Such information is part of information literacy and formal educational curriculum for that should be available for prospective IT managers. According to Badke (2009), such curriculum was unavailable. With the advance of globalization, the importance of information literacy for IT management increases. The increasing varieties of cultures, religions, and belief systems in IT workers in the United States need to be handled effectively and without problems.
For example, many IT workers now come from India and China. Those workers’ belief systems are far different from the typical Western worker. They have very diverse religions, ideas, and cultures making good IT management dependent on understanding that and taking proper actions (Nag, 2011). The basic understanding of the major religions (e. g. : Hindu, Buddism, Taoism) can help in dealing successfully with such people. A good information literacy curriculum would include such information. In the absence of that, rial and error methods can have extremely adverse consequences in this case, as common history shows. Disgruntled employees are a common result of cultural mistakes so errors like that are always to be avoided. From the highest levels of IT management, from the CIO (chief information officer) or CTO (chief technology officer) to the lowest level IT project manager, the quality of information literacy is a key to success. The number of methods and forms of information display has been greatly increased as globalization progresses.
How to communicate effectively with vendors, salespeople, and other outside entities will concern all levels of IT management. The language of technology changes constantly and fluency is a fundamental requirement and more specific knowledge may also be necessary. A significant part of information literacy is computer literacy, and parts of this are technology terminology and language. Every IT manager is well versed in the computer based part of such issues, as it is a fundamental requirement of such positions. That has not been the case for general information literacy.
For example, in the education of all students (some of which will become IT managers), Turusheva, (2009) concluded that “information competence” is a key for understanding many information display formats and types. These can take many forms such as graphs, statistics, networks, diagrams, and charts. Good IT managers must be cognizant of all such forms. Such skills as information competence and information literacy seem to be lacking as subjects in university curriculum according to Russell (2009). Badke (2009) argued that this problem even extends to all levels of the educational system.
This means that nearly all IT managers learn such skills though experience and otherwise on their own. In the IT industry, this could account for problems in IT management where mistakes in information literacy can lead to the loss of the manager’s job. The sheer volume of information of all types is ever increasing, making the job of IT manager more difficult. To remain competent, IT managers must keep up with the latest trends and new technologies. The evaluation of new technology is another skill related to information literacy, since the information describing such technology can take many forms.
The best IT managers are highly skilled in such evaluations. These effective managers seem to be rare, as found in Li (2009). That study found that to deal with the difficulties of IT management, many organizations used encroachment, to save face for executives by simplifying and deflecting harmful results and analysis. This spreads the managerial blame and deals with the well documented fact (every computer science student is taught this) that over 60% of all technology projects fail and software development projects in particular fail even more frequently.
The reasons for the failure of such projects include the incompetence of IT management (Toader et al. , 2010). This is increasingly exemplified by the inability to communicate effectively with workers of foreign origin and incorrect evaluations of technology. The lost revenue of software projects is a huge number and that problem is not getting better. Since dealing with cross cultural management and the evaluation of new technology are skills learned in information literacy, the lack of formal information literacy classes at any educational level may be part of the problem.
Leaving these important skills to chance and hard experience is hurting the IT industry in general. The development of effective IT managers would be greatly helped by formal classes in Information Literacy including Technology Evaluation, Cross Cultural Management and dealing with practitioners of major world religions, in addition to regular management curriculum. Using methods from the SPL model (UOP, 2011) will help scholarship and practice in the information literacy education of future IT managers and leaders.
While the addition of such classes will not have an immediate overall effect, as more and more competent IT managers become available, the frequency of IT project failure should decrease and the time required to develop competent IT managers could be greatly lessened. The availability of such classes could also help existing IT managers to deal with the fast changing technology environment (and also help them to keep their jobs), so adding them to the university curriculum may likely benefit the IT industry in many ways (Russell, 2009).
An increase in the rates of project success could likely benefit everyone. References Badke, W. (2009). How we failed the net generation. Online, 33(4), 47-49. Retrieved from https://ehis. ebscohost. com/eds/detail? vid=2&hid=5&sid=e606d34b-cbfd-4825-bd33-e8996eddf979%40sessionmgr14&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=rzh&AN=2010356030 Li, X. (2009). Managerial entrenchment with strategic information technology: A dynamic perspective. Journal of Management Information Systems, 25(4), 183-204. Retrieved from https://ehis. ebscohost. com/eds/detail? id=2&hid=5&sid=92d559c4-944a-452e-8881-53d4e8fe23b2%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=bth&AN=38418423 Nag, A. (2011). Cross cultural management: An Indian perspective. The Business Review, Cambridge, 17(2), 255-255-260. Retrieved from http://search. proquest. com/docview/871194185? accountid=35812 Russell, P. (2009). Why universities need information literacy now more than ever. Feliciter, 55(3), 92. Retrieved from https://ehis. ebscohost. com/eds/detail? vid=4&hid=5&sid=92d559c4-944a-452e-8881-53d4e8fe23b2%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=f5h&AN=41553415
Toader, C. , Brad, I. , Adamov, T. , Marin, D. & Moisa, S. (2010). The main causes which lead to success or failure of a project. Scientific Papers: Animal Science & Biotechnologies / Lucrari Stiintifice: Zootehnie si Biotehnologii, 43(2), 449-453. Retrieved from http://ehis. ebscohost. com/eds/detail? vid=9&hid=5&sid=92d559c4-944a-452e-8881-53d4e8fe23b2%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=a9h&AN=60948199 Turusheva, L. (2009). Students’ information competence and its importance for
