Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Both the Small IT Unit and Large IT Unit CIO groups indicated that this is the most critical
human factor for them to focus on. This human factor is categorized as an employee
expectation. These data indicate that it is critical for both of the IT unit size CIO groups to
identify and focus on individuals that serve as role models of behavior desired in an agency
employee.
In addition, the Large IT Unit CIO group indicated that focusing on the “set of
expectations that members of a group have for one another” is another critical human factor
of the employee expectation type. This human factor did not emerge as critical in the Small
IT Unit CIO profile.
CIOs who manage Large IT Units are inclined to identify a set of expectations that relate
to a group of employees, rather than relying solely on identifying a single employee who
serves as a role model, when attempting to understand their agency's socio-organizational
environment. Perhaps the relative size of their agencies as illustrated earlier, compared to their
Small IT Unit CIO colleagues, makes identification of a single employee impractical and similar
to finding a needle in a haystack. The size of the IT unit may dictate that focusing on multiple
human factors is necessary to understanding the socio-organization.
Knowledge of Technical Factors
Three of the 10 technical factors emerged as critical in the Small IT Unit CIO profile,
compared to four in the Large IT Unit CIO profile. Two communication technologies emerged
as critical in both the Small IT Unit and Large IT Unit CIO profiles:
•
LANs
•
Electronic mail
These two technical factors ranked first and second, respectively, in both IT unit size
CIO profiles.
In addition, the Small IT Unit CIO group indicated that the “World Wide Web/Internet”
is another communication technology that is critical for them to focus on. In contrast, the
Large IT Unit CIO group indicated that limited impact technologies, such as mainframes/
minicomputers, as well as indirect impact technologies, such as relational databases, are
additional critical technical factors for them to focus on.
These data suggest that communications technologies that enable people to work
together and apart more effectively are critical for CIOs to focus on, regardless of the size of
the IT unit that they manage. Further, as the IT unit size increases, the importance of
technologies that have an indirect or limited impact on how people work together become
more critical for the related CIOs to focus on. This is not surprising, because mainframes/
minicomputers have long been far more common in large organizations than in smaller ones.
Critical Activities
The size of the IT unit that the CIO manages appears to be positively related to the
number of activities felt critical to engage in. Only four activities emerged as critical for the
Small IT Unit CIO to perform across the three activity-based dimensions (i.e., convey the
relevance of IT, manage critical relationships, and implement IT-based solutions). In contrast,
14 activities emerged as critical in the Large IT Unit profile.
