Changing information technology and information technology management

ELSEVIER Information & Management 31 (1997) 275-288

SOS

Changing information technology and information technology management

John "Skip" Benamati a'b, Albert L. Lederer a'*, Meenu Singh a'c

aDecision Science and Information Systems Area, C.M. Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0034, USA

bDepartment of Decision Sciences and Management Information Systems, Richard Z Farmer School of Business Administration, Miami University, Oxford, Oil 45056, USA

CComputer and Technical Sciences Department, Kentucky State University, Frankfort, KY 40601, USA

Abstract

Information technology is changing at a rapid rate. A theory has hypothesized that change in IT causes problems for IT managers and that they respond with coping mechanisms to handle these problems. Structured interviews with 16 IT professionals at different organizations identified 31 unique projects that used 86 new ITs which caused 142 problems. Eleven categories summarized the problems. The most common were training demands, vendor oversell, acquisition dilemmas, new integration, support burden, vendor neglect, and resistance. The eleven categories also summarized the coping mechanisms applied to these problems. The most common of these were education and training, inaction, internal support, vendor support, new procedures, and persuasion. This research provides practicing IT managers with alternative perspectives on the problems and a variety of coping mechanisms from which to choose. It also provides suggestions for future researchers. \~ 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

1. Introduction

Information technology is changing at a rapid pace. Emerging technologies include not only new hardware, software, and data communications for user applications, but also planning and development tools for IT professionals. New products seem to surface with greater alacrity than ever before in the history of computing.

Industry observers have suggested that swiftly changing IT is causing difficulties for today's IT management [5, 19]. Due to the lengthy duration of IT acquisition and implementation, the emergence of dramatic,

*Corresponding author. Tel.: 606 257-3063; fax: 606 257-8031; e-mail: sbenanml @ukcc.uky.edu.

0378-7206/97/$17.00 © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PH S-0378-7206(96)01091-9

new, useful ITs and the passing of others may transpire on large development projects. In fact, a new IT can even become obsolete before project completion.

Capitalizing on the opportunities of new IT while avoiding the risks of fads can pose a complex challenge to IT management. Mistakes can be costly and IT managers cannot be experts on all emerging ITs [6]. Moreover, given the growing strategic impact of IT, the need to manage it successfully is felt with urgency.

Given this state of affairs, research is needed to help IT managers understand, plan, and control the impact of changing IT on their IT organization. That is, research is needed to reflect the problems and solu- tions facing the IT provider. To advance this study, this paper describes a research effort to answer two fundamental questions:

276 J. Benamati et al./Information & Management 31 (1997) 275-288

• What problems for IT management are being caused by the rapid change in IT?

• How are IT managers coping with these problems?

In answering these questions, the research applies a theory from the MIS literature to the experiences of practicing IT professionals to help IT managers deal with changing IT and to clarify the theory.

2. Practit ioner perspectives

The effect of rapid change in IT on IT management is recognized in both practice and theory. From the practitioner perspective, observers have acknowl- edged that IT is changing at an unprecedented rate [6, 12]. Plunging costs of IT have generated increased investment in IT and enabled this change [4]. A growing variety of IT now exists and thus IT professionals are forced to develop a wide variety of new skills. Moreover, new ITs are expected in increasing numbers over the next few years as standards for communications, display, and data-sharing improve [3].

Surveys have confirmed that this change is challen- ging IT managers. A survey of 50 U.S. chief information officers indicated that rapidly changing IT was their second most important issue [8]. A survey of IT managers aimed at identifying the top issues in Canada found that keeping up with rapidly changing IT was the second most important issue to them [6]. In a survey of European IT managers, 61% of the respondents~-indicated that keeping up with emerging IT was imprrtant or critical [19].

These concerns about new IT are likely to increase becaUse of the need to integrate the technologies. Thus in one survey, IT managers in the U.S. public sector indicated that the integration of technologies was a top concern for them [7]. (The impact of changing IT was not an option in this survey.) Regardless of any exacerbating reasons, changing IT is clearly a key issue facing IT managers around the world.

3. Theoretical foundation

Previous research has long considered the impact of IT on the business organization [ 1, 18]. More recently

it has studied how the increasing strategic importance of IT affects the structure and management of the business organization [14, 23]. Other recent research mentions the role of changing IT on the new ways in which IT organizations are structured and managed [11, 22].

A theory has described the impact of change in both the internal and external environment on IT management and the organization's response to it [16]. This theory of environmental impact names three constructs and their relationships. The constructs are the environment, problems, and coping mechanisms.

Figure 1 shows the theory. It is based on the organizational studies literature and interviews with 20 top IT executives. In the theory, organizations are seen as reactive entities at the mercy of the changing environment and the problems that it causes [9, 10, 13, 24]. Thus, arrow A represents the environment creating problems for IT management. Arrow B depicts these problems as motivating the coping mechanisms to alleviate them. Arrow C shows the coping mechanisms directly reducing the problems.

Organizations can also adopt proactive policies to attempt to modify their environments [15, 20, 21]. Thus, arrow D displays the coping mechanisms reducing the problems by alerting the environment.

The theory defines the environment as composed of inter-organizational and intra-organizational dimensions. One inter-organizational dimension is technology. Although the theory mentions 'technology,' all references in it actually deal with 'IT' and hence this paper speaks of IT. Thus, change in the IT dimension of the environment is seen as causing several categories of problems.

The theory identifies six categories of problems of which three result from changing IT. Buy or wait represents a dilemma forcing IT professionals to buy new IT prematurely or delay receiving its benefits. Technology mania is the excessive fascination with new IT. Incompatibility is the acquisition of new ITs that do not easily work together.

These problems then prompt IT management to use coping mechanisms to reduce them directly or to try to change the environment to dampen their effects. As an example of a coping mechanism, the theory describes how an organization applies vendor watching to study a vendor, anticipate future software releases, and use advance information to dampen their adverse effects.

,1. Benamati et al./lnformation & Management 31 (1997) 275-288 277

DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENT

Inter-Oraanizational Technology Government Competitors Customers

Intra-Oraanizational

Users

A m

CATEGORIES OF PROBLEMS

Priority Setting Buy or Wait Technology Mania Incompatibility Unrealistic

Expectations Sloppy Systems

CATEGORIES OF COPING MECHANISMS

External to IS Debt Internal to IS Dept Transfer the problem Systems Design Public Relations Administrative Policies Vendor Watching Vendor Watching Political Action

Muddle Through

Fig. 1. Environmental Impact Theory.

This paper uses the environmental impact theory as its foundation to study changing IT and its effect on IT management. As the problems and coping mechanisms are probably more numerous and complex than those described in the theory, it strives to understand them better. In doing so, it applies the theory to identify practical courses of action for IT managers to help them cope with rapidly changing IT. It also seeks to clarify the theory.

4. Methodology

This paper has employed a qualitative methodology because that is a more appropriate way to investigate an area in which few previous studies have been done. .~ qualitative approach also enables study in a natural setting. It allows the investigator to answer 'how' and 'why" questions and thus understand the nature and complexity of the processes taking place. Qualitative research has also been described as being very useful for clarifying theory [2, 17]. In effect, qualitative research was the only reasonable approach for this study.

However, natural scientists have criticized qualitative research for its lack of control, replicability, and

generalizability [17]. Therefore, after choosing qualitative research methodology the authors deliberately decided to improve the control, replicability, and generalizability of the study by adhering to specific procedures. Examples of such procedures included following a tightly constructed script of questions, using a wide variety of subjects, and defining and explaining terms carefully to the subjects.

The research used structured interviews because they are a valid approach for data collection in qualitative research [2]. Interview subjects were chosen from a list of IT professionals who were alumni of the business college of a major diverse university. The group was selected to represent diverse industries, IT organizations of different sizes, and various levels within their IT organizations to ensure that the researchers observed a broad view of the effects of changing IT and the IT management response. A multiple case study can give such a view [2].

Subjects received a brief letter explaining the study and soliciting participation in an interview. The letter guaranteed the anonymity of each individual.

Subjects then received phone calls from the researchers to answer any questions and schedule interviews at a convenient time and place. A total of 16 out of the 18 (89%) contacted agreed to parti-


cipate. This indicated a great interest in the problem of changing IT.

The interviews lasted an average of 90 minutes. At the beginning of each interview, the subject received a one-page description explaining the background and objectives of the research project. The document contained this information to help the subjects focus on the unit of analysis, namely, the new IT that the subjects had used or attempted to use in their organizations. For example, it defined new technology and asked subjects to consider both business applications and non-business, internal IT projects. The researchers further explained the document orally to the subjects before asking questions.

They then asked the subjects to identify the three or four most recently considered or implemented projects of which they had fairly detailed knowledge. For each project, the subjects were asked to list any new ITs that were investigated for use in the project. They were then asked to respond to these two core, open-ended requests about the IT they had used:

• Describe any problems the IT organization had with this new technology.

• Describe any actions taken to alleviate these problems.

During the interviews, the researchers also asked how the actions worked. Furthermore, they frequently asked the subjects to elucidate their answers to ensure that they understood completely. The interviews also employed 7-point Likert-type scales asking the extent of success of the projects and their dependence on new IT.

The same two researchers were present for all interviews. They took extensive notes and reconciled and transcribed them shortly thereafter. They used these transcribed notes as the raw data for the analysis. With the subjects' permission, the researchers also recorded all of the interviews on audio tape. They used the tape to resolve any discrepancies during transcrip- tion. They also provided the subjects with an earlier version of this paper and requested comment on it.

5. Subject demographics

Of the 16 subjects, four came from manufacturing, three from IT consulting, and one from each of health

Table 1 Subjects' job responsibilities

Responsibility Number of subjects

Project manager 10 Systems design 10 Systems analysis 9 Database administrator 6 Programming 5 Systems department manager 5 Systems programming 5

care, education, database services, communication services, petroleum, government, mining, utilities, and engineering. Their organizations had an average of 136 IT employees with a range of 1 to 1,000. They also had an average of 8,300 total employees with a range of 3 to 100,000.

Table 1 presents the job responsibilities of the subjects. Many had multiple responsibilities. They also had IT experience varying from 8 to 26 years with a mean of 17 years. The diversity, responsibility, and experience of the subjects thus suggest they were knowledgeable representatives of the IT profession.

Table 2 provides information about the size of each organization. It also includes an indicator of the presence of a group dedicated to making decisions about emerging IT.

6. Findings

The subjects - from 16 different organizations - described 31 unique projects. The projects used 86 new ITs that caused 142 problems.

Each subject described one, two, three or four projects with an average of about two each. Examples of projects included application development efforts, LAN installations, application packages or upgrades, executive information systems, e-mail installations, and various standardization efforts.

The new ITs also varied widely. New software included operating systems, database management systems, development tools, packaged applications, office automation tools, CASE tools, and other products. Examples of new hardware consisted of PCs, mid-range computers, bridges, routers, multiplexors, and bar code readers. Communication technology

J. Benamafi et al./Information & Management 31 (1997)275-288 279

"Fable 2 Organization profiles

Primary business Annual sales (Millions) Employees IS Employees IS budget (Millions) Users supported IT decision group

Manufacturing 2,500 20,000 400 N/A 10,000 Yes Manufacturing N/A 1,800 11 1.25 350 No Manufacturing N/A 3,000+ 150 N/A 3,000+ No Manufacturing 25,000 98,200 1 ,000+ Multimillion 90,000 N/A IT consulting 145 483 17 2 483 Yes IT consulting 0.15 3 3 N/A 40 Companies No IT consulting N/A 5 1 0.02 5 No Ilealth care N/A 1,900 22 0.9 1,900 Yes Education N/A 6,000 N/A N/A N/A No Database services 10 110 30 Multimillion 2,100 Yes Communication 100 275 165 50 55,000 No t'etroleum Multimillion 50,000 300 Multimillion Thousands Yes Government N/A 75 6 N/A 55 No Mining 30 3,000 4 0.275 160 Yes Utility 600 2,200 80 2 2,200 Yes Engineering N/A 12 8 N/A 8 Yes

Budget and Sales appear in US dollars.

included fiber optics, network protocols, network software, file and database servers, e-mail systems, and other ITs. The range of the number of new ITs per organization was 1 to 13 with a mean of about 5.

As expected, the projects depended fairly extensively on new IT. Subjects rated this dependence at 5.71 on a Likert- type scale of 1 to 7 and gave 36% of the projects the greatest possible dependence rating of 7.

They also rated the success of these projects at 5.28 on the 7-point scale where 7 represented the greatest possible success. This success rating of each project correlated with its dependence on new IT at - 0 .26 . The rating also correlated with the number of new technologies for each project at - 0 .51 . Although the former correlation was not statistically significant, its direction was consistent with the expectation that organizations face difficulty in responding to changing IT. The latter correlation was significant at the 0.01 ~evel and thus better confirms this expectation.

7. Categories of problems

The researchers studied the problems described in the interview transcripts in search of common themes within and boundaries between them for use in their categorization. They combined common problems,

subdivided them, and revised the categories until they eventually reduced them to the categories shown in Table 3. Table 3 not only names the categories but also shows the number of individual projects which had at least one occurrence, and the percentage of projects in which each appeared. The problems are discussed below.

7.1. Training demands

Changing IT has created considerably increased demand for training and education. This is because the absence of experience with new IT hampers its selection, installation, support, and use. In fact, unexpected problems with a specific new IT may render training classes insufficient although they had seemed detailed enough when begun. Perhaps training demands are especial ly problematic because they necessitate budgetary and time commitments.

Unquestionably, training can provide a good over- view of a new IT. However, subjects in this study reported that more complicated, unanticipated matters such as problem determination and debugging caused them great frustration. Both IT professionals and users can feel the effects of the lack of training. The manager of network and partner relationships from a communicat ions firm illustrated this by describing the difficulties that users faced in attempting to apply a

280

Table 3 Problem frequencies

J. Benamati et al./Information & Management 31 (1997) 275-288

Problems Total occurrences Projects with occurrence (s) Percent of projects with occurrence (s)

Training demands 41 21 68% Vendor oversell 15 11 35% New integration 13 10 32% Resistance 11 10 32% Acquisition dilemmas 11 8 26% Vendor neglect 10 8 26% Support burden 12 7 23% Cascading needs 9 7 23% Unexplained failures 7 7 23% Errors 6 6 19% Poor performance 7 4 13% Total 142

Note: The percent of projects with occurrence (s) column represents the percentage of projects in which the problem occurred with at least one technology.

reporting tool to a new relational database with insufficient understanding of the data model.

7.2. Vendor oversell

The subjects stated that the increase in new IT has produced exaggerated vendor claims about the capabilities of new 1T products. Perhaps the rapid change in IT has exacerbated this problem due to the appear- ance of a variety of new IT in a highly competitive marketplace. Regardless of the reason for vendor oversell, the problem causes organizations to acquire products they might otherwise have ignored.

Several subjects described limitations of new IT that vendors had failed to mention prior to their acquisition. Others described how a particular new IT simply could not do what they had expected. The director of data processing from a coal mining firm alluded to a new product as 'vaporware' to illustrate a vendor currently selling a product on the basis of IT capabilities still under development. (Vaporware, recently a neologism, is perhaps now a clichr!) Another interviewee described his difficulties when trying to apply an IT in areas other than its original, limited intent: something that he expected to be able to do when he bought it.

7.3. Acquisition dilemmas

Changing IT has produced awkward dilemmas for managers responsible for recommending or authoriz-

ing its purchase. The decision-making process is difficult because new products with attractive options appear so readily and managers have limited, reliable information about them. Managers must choose between competing products and between acquiring at present or awaiting products with more options at perhaps lower cost. These dilemmas paralyze some managers. They force others to make quick decisions and sometimes replace one IT with another during a development project. The associate director of communications, marketing, and consulting for a major university described an acquisition process whose decision making required two years.

7.4. New integration

Changing IT has resulted in fresh challenges to integrate the wide variety of new IT both with existing and other new IT. The interfacing of application data or program control from one IT to another is often essential. However, a vendor's statement that a new IT seamlessly integrates with another may ignore the fact that time and effort are required to develop the software needed to communicate efficiently. The purchasing systems manager of a manufacturer described how a simple upgrade to a newer version of the same IT demanded a complete rewrite of existing interfaces.

7.5. Support burden

Rapid change has increased ongoing efforts to support both new and existing IT. One subject

J. Benamati et al./Information & Management 31 (1997) 275-288 281

described how the adoption of new IT, in the absence of in-house expertise, had forced his organization to augment its staff with outside consultants.

Increasingly self-sufficient users probably exacer- bate the problem. A staff programmer from a manufacturer described how users were adversely affecting their workstation environments by trying to install new software that the manufacturer's IT organization did not yet support.

The staff programmer illustrated the increasing support burden when he described the firm's move to client/server computing. He said, "I t 's like starting over because you have to resolve all of the problems that have been already been solved in the mainframe world."

7.6. Resistance

New IT has always generated resistance and today's rapidly changing IT is no exception. In today's turbu- lent IT environment, perhaps this problem affects IT staff more than in the past. Perhaps also, new IT involves IT staff from external organizations more so than it did before. The purchasing systems manager from a manufacturer illustrated this latter point when he described the reluctance of an organization's external suppliers to use a new IT to accept all orders electronically.

IT staff resistance to new development tools, for example, can hamper the organization's ability to deliver products and services to users. The manager of network and partner relationships from a communications firm described IT professionals' reaction to a new tool by saying that "Fear of the technology kept it from being used to its fullest. Only the functionality that was required was learned." In this case, the technology had many functions that went unexploited because the IT professionals learned only the mini- mum necessary to apply the tool.

7. 7. Vendor neglect

Some IT is so new that even its vendors lack sufficient experience to support it. Even when they provide support, some subjects observed that its level may be inadequate. A systems engineer at a petroleum manufacturer described a project using an IT from a vendor that was purchased by another vendor while

the project was in midstream. The integration of the two vendors caused problems and therefore delays through much of the project.

With the growth in new IT, projects with multiple vendors have probably proliferated. A multi-vendor environment can provide a difficult setting in which to determine the particular vendor whose IT was causing a problem. The IT organization can be caught between squabbling vendors each of whom prefers to neglect the problem and accuse another of responsibility for it. In one instance, the director of data processing of a coal mining firm had to set up and coordinate a meeting with all vendors involved in a project to solve a nagging problem. During the meeting, the vendors discovered that the source of the problem was simply the use of incorrect cabling. As another example, the director of computer services of a hospital described pressure from a vendor to adopt a new IT under threat of dropping its support for an old one.

7.8. Poor performance

Subjects discussed cases where performance of a new IT failed to meet their expectations. Poor performance includes the inefficient use of such resources as computer time and storage. The product service administrator of a utilities company illustrated this by explaining how programmers rewrote initial code to improve its performance after they better understood a new IT.

7. 9. Unexplained failure

Subjects stated that new IT sometimes failed without explanation. Perhaps the subjects did not fully understand how to implement the IT due to their inexperience or lack of training. Perhaps the IT itself had not been fully debugged. Such failures appeared randomly and hence were not reproducible. Thus problem determination, even by the vendor, could be very difficult and costly. Sometimes problems vanished inexplicably.

A self-employed computer consultant explained how an application on a newly installed LAN froze intermittently and required the workstation to be restarted. A LAN expert was called in to investigate the problem. The expert experimented with various system parameters and eventually the problem dis-


appeared. Neither the consultant nor the expert fully understood why.

7.10. Cascading needs

The acquisition of one new IT can demand the unforeseen acquisition of another or the need to carry out unexpected tasks. As the number and diversity of new ITs have grown, this problem has probably increased. The unexpected costs can be great. As an example, the manager of network and partner relationships at a communications firm described how the use of new imaging software strained a local area network and caused an unexpected, early need to upgrade it. In another case, a product service administrator at a utilities company described how his organization spent unanticipated time and money reevaluating specific business processes strictly in response to the availability of a new IT.

7.11. Errors

above, this one contains errors which are reproducible and correctable. The purchasing systems manager of a manufacturer described the failure of a communications function in a new IT and how its correction delayed a project.

8. Categories of coping mechanisms

The researchers also studied the actions taken by subjects to alleviate the problems described in the interview transcripts. They did this to search for common themes for use in categorizing them. In a manner similar to the analysis of the problems, they combined common actions, subdivided them, and revised the categories until they eventually reduced them to those shown in Table 4. In a fashion similar to Tables 3 and 4 describes the occurrences of each coping mechanism. It also includes the generally intended impact of each. The coping mechanisms are discussed below.

Although IT is never assumed to be error-free, rapid change in IT probably produces more errors in the IT itself. In his rush to the marketplace, the vendor may not have time to debug its products as extensively as he would otherwise have. In the early days of the product, such problems are probably greater. Unlike the unexplained failures category

8.1. Education and training

Subjects described education and training as the most commonly applied coping mechanism. It included formal and informal, in-house and off-site, and vendor, third party, and internally provided instruction. Internal personnel provided it 48% of

Table 4 Coping mechanism frequencies and effects

Coping mechanism Total occurrences Projects with Percent of projects Effects on problems occurrence (s) with occurrence (s) or environment

Education & training 40 18 58% Problems Inaction 21 13 42% Neither Internal support 16 13 42% Problems Vendor support 15 10 32% Both New procedures 12 9 29% Problems Persuasion 11 9 29% Both Endurance 9 7 23% Problems Additional technology 6 4 13% Problems Consultants and other users 5 4 13% Problems Staffing 4 3 10% Problems Delay 3 2 6% Environment Total 142

Note: The Percent of Projects with Occurrence (s) column represents the percentage of projects in which the coping mechanism was applied to at least one technology.

J. Benamati et al./Information & Management 31 (1997) 275-288 283

the time, vendors 32%, and a third party 20%. The prominence of this mechanism suggests its importance in coping with new IT by responding directly to the demand for training.

8 2. Inaction

The absence of any specific action suggested this category. Inaction appeared to be the course taken in the presence of insufficient resources or perhaps in the absence of severe problems. The frequency of inaction indicates that many organizations often put up with their problems. Perhaps the use of inaction suggests the high costs of problems caused by changing IT. The director of data processing from a coal mining firm illustrated these costs by describing how his organization could not afford to purchase a second server for a LAN administrator to use to learn a new IT that the firm had adopted.

8 3. Internal support

change. Organizations also modified business processes based on new IT. For example, the product service administrator of a utilities company illustrated this by explaining how his organization implemented new software that provided different inventory information. It was forced to adjust to the new IT by altering its inventory tax reporting procedures.

8.6. Persuasion

According to subjects, managers participated in efforts to cope with the problems of changing IT by persuading vendors to resolve problems and by con- vincing IT staff and users to accept new IT. For example, a senior systems analyst with a government body described how a manager threatened to return a new IT to the vendor if it failed to become more responsive to the problems of the IT. Another subject described how a manager persuaded users to access their data through a new report generator by making it mandatory.

This category represents the actions whereby the organization solved the problem internally. Two common actions in the category were writing necessary interfaces between technologies and reading trade literature to learn about new IT. The manager of network and partner relationships from a communications firm described his extensive reliance on Datapro publications for information about available IT.

8 4. Vendor support

Organizations attempted to avoid or minimize problems with changing IT by obtaining support from the vendor of the IT. A senior systems analyst with a government body used vendor support to resolve open database connectivity (ODBC) driver read failures. In another case, an IT organization worked directly with a vendor to define requirements for enhancements to future releases of the vendor's IT.

8 5. New procedures

Some subjects described their organization's new procedures to ameliorate the problems caused by changing IT. Examples included procedures for select- ing, testing, and using IT, as well as controlling

8.Z Endurance

This category closely resembles the internal support category but differs in that internal support actions had the resources necessary for the support. Endurance is typified by the lack of adequate resources to address the problem. Endurance is probably one of the least effective coping mechanisms. As a systems engineer at a petroleum manufacturer put it, "We had to put on many hats and try to get many resources from management to face the problem, but without Success...."

8.8. Additional technology

In some cases, organizations acquire or upgrade one technology to solve the problems caused by a different, new one. Subjects described PC memory upgrades, increased network bandwidth, and additional dial-up capabilities in response to the implementation of some other new IT. A senior software engineer at a database services firm even suggested this as a solution to performance problems by stating that "There has been a paradigm shift in worrying about performance. Now we just throw more processing power at it."

284 J. Benamati et al./lnformation & Management 31 (1997) 275-288

8.9. Staffing

Organizations responded to changing IT with new staffing decisions. They changed hiring practices and staffing structures. The manager of networking and operations at a manufacturer described his firm's need to change its staffing structure by saying that "...even though they had moved into a LAN workstation environment, they were still geared to support a mainframe environment." The firm created a new PC technician support position and was further reevaluating the organization of its support staff.

8.10. Consultants and other users

Subjects described their reliance on external consultants and users from other firms in enabling them to deal with changing IT. These parties assisted in the selection of new IT. They also helped with problem resolution for new and already acquired IT. The director of data processing of a coal mining firm described how he could not find expert consultants in a new IT but instead relied on support from another company that used it.

8.11. Delay

Some organizations respond to the availability of new technology by intentionally delaying a decision to acquire it. The deliberate nature of this category distinguishes it from inaction. An organization might delay to await new, expected capabilities. It might also delay until early adopters find flaws in the IT and its vendor corrects them.

The director of computer services of a hospital described her firm's reluctance to acquire new software even though its vendor planned to discontinue service on the current version. In this case, the hospital delayed acquisition to identify more clearly its long-range strategic direction for IT and to be more certain that new IT investments appropriately fit its needs. It thereby avoided acquiring IT that might have been obsolete by the time it determined its long-term direction.

9. Implications for practice

This study paints a picture of IT professionals buffeted by simultaneous pressures to adopt and avoid

new IT, forced to underestimate the complexity of the new IT that they do adopt, and then driven to find less expensive, quick fixes to the problems that ensue. In fact, all of the 142 problems in this study focused on short-term issues. For example, no subjects acknowl- edged that their organization was implementing a Babel of new ITs for which maintenance would some day be very difficult when no staff member has the required skills. Also, no subjects stressed the point that IT is a strategic company resource in their answers. In effect, perhaps planning for long-term IT change is the fundamental challenge facing these professionals although meeting today's crisis may take precedence.

Regardless, this paper offers several suggestions for IT managers who must deal with rapidly changing IT. First, it provides a checklist of problems. IT managers can benefit by reviewing this checklist and determin- ing those from which their organizations suffer. If they do suffer from them, they can feel some sense of relief that they alone do not face these problems.

More important, IT managers can use this checklist to stimulate ideas for alternative interpretations of the problems they encounter. In other words, is a particular problem the result of training demands or resistance? Or a result of vendor oversell or vendor neglect? By reconsidering the nature of a problem, IT managers can develop ideas on how to solve it or avoid it in the future.

An example illustrates such a use of the problems checklist. The utilities company's product service administrator in this study explained how programmers rewrote the initial code to improve its performance after they better understood a new IT. On the surface, this was a poor performance problem (as inter- preted by the authors). Perhaps with the use of the checklist, the administrator might have seen it as a training demands problem and might have applied the education andtrainingcoping mechanismearlyin theproject.

In addition to a problems checklist, this paper offers a checklist of coping mechanisms. Practitioners can use it to help evaluate alternative coping mechanisms which can be used when facing problems. For example, in this study the associate director of communications, marketing, and consulting for a major university used the endurance coping mechanism to address a vendor neglect problem where the vendor had failed to provide sufficient support for a very new IT. By using the coping mechanisms checklist, the directormight

J. Benamati et al./lnformation & Management 31 (1997) 275-288 285

have realized that he could have used the new procedures coping mechanism to judge the vendor's ability to support the IT as part of the IT selection process.

Furthermore, each coping mechanism probablyhas its own merits and addresses some particular problems better than others. For example, when the resistance problem was encountered, persuasion appeared to be the most commonly used coping mechanism.

Although common, persuasion did not seem particularly effective for resistance. However, education and training provided better results for that problem. Persuasion perhaps served as a more useful way to deal with vendor neglect. Other coping mechanisms had marginal success when dealing with vendor neglect. While some such inferences can be drawn from the data, the sample size of 31 projects suggests the need for further study (as described in the following section).

The present researchers, nevertheless, also offer these prescriptions:

• Diligently investigate proposed, new IT. Provide education and training for both staff and management. Provide it not only after choosing new IT but also to aid the selection process.

• Refrain from excessive reliance on vendors for information when considering the purchase of their products. Remember that a vendor's first objective is to sell the product.

• Rely on other outside experts but not to the extent that leaves your organization vulnerable to them.

• Anticipate unforeseen problems when implementing a project based on new IT. Ensure that the planning process budgets for them.

• Learn from the experiences of others who have implemented the new IT you are considering. Increase networking with IT managers with a new enthusiasm to facilitate this learning.

10. Implications for research

In an effort to be comprehensive, this paper identifies and elucidates substantially more individual problems and coping mechanisms than the theory on which it is based had posited. It also extends the meanings of the older categories (e.g. the acquisition dilemma resembles the original theory's buy or wait problem but also includes competing products). In an

effort to be parsimonious but still meaningful, this research reduces the problems and coping mechanisms to eleven categories of each.

Though probably none of the problems and coping mechanisms in this study are particularly new, this paper makes an important contribution by depicting them together in the context of changing IT. Since IT seems to be changing so rapidly, depicting it in this manner is all the more valuable. In any case, no previous research has synthesized such a consolidated view.

In synthesizing this view, the study also provides implications for research. For example, it gives evi- dence illustrating the environmental impact theory. That is, subjects had little difficulty in describing the problems they encountered as they adopted new IT. They also easily described the actions they took in response to the problems. The present researchers easily understood the problems and coping mechanisms. They also had little trouble in considering whether the coping mechanisms (except inaction) responded directly to the problems or the environment or both. Had subjects failed to respond to the questions or the researchers not been able to analyze the data, the theory would have been refuted.

In addition to illustrating the theory, this study suggests three shortcomings to it. The shortcomings become evident because the problems and coping mechanisms sometimes appear to overlap. The three shortcomings are:

I0.1. Problems can cause other problems

The original theory did not describe the impact of one problem on another. Although the current researchers could categorize the problems, some problems at times appeared to cause others. For example, unmet training demands may result in poor performance and vulnerability to vendor oversell. Vendor oversell appears to cause acquisition dilemmas. New integration needs may increase the support burden. Resistance (by IT professionals) to learn a new IT may cause unexplained failure.

10.2. Coping mechanisms are problems

In a sense, coping mechanisms are simply problems that address existing problems! The current study

286 J. Benamati et aL /Information & Management 31 (1997) 275-288

suggested this when particular coping mechanisms seemed to address problems yet at the same time sounded problematic themselves. That is, both the problems and coping mechanisms appeared trouble- some because they were costly in either financial or non-financial terms. Subjects appeared to seek simply less costly coping mechanisms than the problems that induced them.

For example, subjects often described training demands as a problem. After all, training is time consuming and costly. However, subjects described education and training as a coping mechanism. The cost of education and training is presumably less costly than the problems that promoted it. Thus ful- filling training demands is both a problem (in that it is costly) and a coping mechanism (by reducing other costly problems).

As another example, presumably the acquisition dilemma is problematic because it slows the organization's adoption of a new IT and creates opportunity costs. However, delay is a coping mechanism because it prevents the organization from prematurely adopt- ing a new IT and enduring costly, concomitant problems.

10.3. C o p i n g m e c h a n i s m s can cause p r o b l e m s

The application of coping mechanisms to alleviate problems can in fact produce new problems. For example, the additional technology coping mechanism results in new IT which may present its own problems. Also, when an organizationuses vendor support and the vendor is insufficiently responsive, vendor neglect becomes a new problem.

These three shortcomings suggest a revision to the theory. Figure 2 shows the revision. It includes the categories of IT problems and coping mechanisms related to changing IT. Arrow A still shows that IT creates problems, arrow B that the problems inspire coping mechanisms, arrow C that the coping mechanisms can address the problems directly, and arrow D that they can reduce the problems by altering the environment.

In the revised theory, the coping mechanisms are shown embedded within the problems to indicate that they can represent problems themselves. The new arrow E shows that coping mechanisms can create other problems. Arrow F indicates that problems can

cause other problems. (The revised theory ignores the division into the inter-organizational coping mechanisms because it did not appear to be a significant issue for IT.)

This revision provides a basis for future research. For example, efforts should be made to investigate and validate it with a larger sample. Researchers should use the data collected here to create a survey instrument with scaled items of problems and coping mechanisms to be factor-analyzed into categories to operationalize the variables (i.e. the problems, coping mechanisms, and environment).

Researchers should subsequently use the instrument to test hypotheses and answer related research questions. Hypotheses suggested by this paper might cor- respond to the arrows in Figure 2. Each of these hypotheses could be tested for coping mechanisms, IT management problems, and IT in general. They could also be tested for individual coping mechanisms, IT management problems, and ITs.

In addition to investigating the relationships in the revised theory, researchers might ask additional questions such as:

• Under what circumstances are particular problems present or more severe?

• How successfully does each particular coping mechanism alleviate particular IT management problems?

• Under what circumstances are particular coping mechanisms more efficient and effective than others?

Future research should investigate the impressions of others knowledgeable about IT projects. Vendors and executives may view them differently than do IT professionals. If fact, different IT professionals might have different views. If users participated in a project (many projects in this study were internal IT projects without user participation), they might also offer insights. Such different views could cross-validate the views of the IT professionals most knowledgeable about the projects.

11. Conclusion

This study is probably the first to provide a comprehensive description of the management of IT in

J. Benamati et al./ lnformation & Management 31 (1997) 275-288 287

DIMENSION OF ENVIRONMENT

Information Technology

I l"

A

CATEGORIES OF PROBLEMS

Training Demands Vendor Oversell New Integration Support Burden Acquisition Dilemmas Resistance Vendor Neglect Cascading Needs Poor Performance Unexplained Failures Errors

B C E

I,

CATEGORIES OF COPING MECHANISMS

Education & Training Inaction Internal Support Vendor Support New Procedures Persuasion Endurance Additional Technology Consultants & Other Users Staffing Delay

Fig. 2. Revised Theory.

terms of rapidly changing IT. Although individually, no problem or coping mechanism is particularly new, this study presents an organized view of the perva- siveness of the problems and the uses of the coping mechanisms.

The study described here thus makes several con- tributions. It provides IT managers with a checklist of potential problems to guide them in understanding their own problems. It provides them with another checklist of coping mechanisms to help them find alternatives for dealing with changing IT. It also offers them specific prescriptions for dealing with changing IT.

The study provides researchers with suggestions as to how to further study the impact of changing IT. Researchers should continue to seek better means of

helping IT managers plan and control while facing the challenges of changing IT.

Perhaps in summary, one might observe that incorrect planning assumptions, insufficient resources, and misallocated responsibilities and accountabilities form the foundation of all of the problems in this study. Better assumptions, more appropriate resources, and better defined roles could reduce the problems. This paper lays the groundwork for the identification of those planning assumptions, resources, and roles.

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John Benamati is a Ph.D. candidate in Decision Science and Information Sys- tems at the Carol Martin Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky. Mr. Benamati was an IS professional with IBM for ten years and has been an independent consultant for the last two years. He has held positions in internal IS organizations, technical

marketing, and consulting and services. He holds a BS in computer science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an MS in information systems from Marist College. He has been a University of Kentucky Presidential Fellow since 1994 and was a Richard D. Irwin Dissertation Fellowship recipient for 1996--97. His research investigates the effects of rapidly changing IT on the management of information.

Albert L. Lederer is Professor of Management Information Systems and Ashland Oil Research Fellow at the Carol Martin Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky. He holds a Ph.D. in industrial and systems engineering from the Ohio State University, an MS in computer and information sciences from Ohio State, and a BA in psychology from the University of Cincinnati. His articles have

appeared in Information and Management, MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, Information Systems Research, Decision Sciences, and elsewhere. His major research area is information systems planning.

Meenu Singh is Assistant Professor in the Computer and Technical Sciences Department at Kentucky State Univer- sity. He is also currently a candidate for a Ph.D. degree in management information systems at the University of Ken- tucky. He holds a Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the Rangoon Institute of Technology, Burma. He also

holds M.S. degrees in applied math and computer science from Western Illinois University. He taught computer science, math, and statistics for six years at Western Illinois and Edinboro University. He also has nine years of industrial experience in engineering and management in the paper and chemical industry. His research interests focus on expert model base systems and information technology for competitive advantage.

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Changing information technology and information technology management