Dealing with the veiled devil

Since the 1990s, organizations have gradually become involved in the transformation of their information technology (IT) management process. In order to determine the direction of IT development in correlation with business needs, a consolidated management approach is imposed. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of the maturity level of IT management process in an organization. For this purpose, an empirical study in a Romanian public service company was done by using the benchmarking technique and Capability Maturity Model to describe the maturity level of IT management process. Four benchmarking classes, including a number of 24 benchmarks, were taken into account to focus on the main key issues - IT management strategy and IT planning; alignment of business strategy, IT strategy, organizational structure, and IT infrastructure; and information systems security management. The study reveals that the IT management process is mainly focused on technological dimension and less on the managerial one. It was observed that IT managers have a low awareness of managerial skills in planning, organizing, controlling, and leading the IT activities. Practical implication of the study presents two major issues: 1) on one hand, the need to approach a transversal vision in managing the IT process by aligning it to a complex set of choices, reflecting both a strategic and functional perspective and, 2) on the other hand, this study may be useful for managers looking to improve management of the IT department as well as the quality of their services. The study also indicates specific recommendations to refine the IT management process of Romanian companies.

Deployment of air-side economizers in data centers is rapidly gaining acceptance to reduce the cost of energy by reducing the hours of operation of CRAC units. Use of air-side economizers has the associated risk of introducing gaseous and particulate contamination into data centers, thus, degrading the reliability of Information Technology (IT) equipment. Sulfur-bearing gaseous contamination is of concern because it attacks the copper and silver metallization of the electronic components causing electrical opens and/or shorts. Particulate contamination with low deliquescence relative humidity is of concern because it becomes wet and therefore electrically conductive under normal data center relative humidity conditions. IT equipment manufacturers guarantee the reliability of their equipment operating in environment within ISA 71.04-2013 severity level G1 and within the ASHRAE recommended temperature-relative humidity envelope. The challenge is to determine the reliability degrading effect of contamination severity levels higher than G1 and the temperature and humidity allowable ranges A1–A3 well outside the recommended range. This paper is a first attempt at addressing this challenge by studying the cumulative corrosion damage to IT equipment operated in an experimental data center located in Dallas, known to have contaminated air with ISA 71.04-2013 severity level G2. The data center is cooled using an air-side economizer. This study serves several purposes including: the correlation of equipment reliability to levels of airborne corrosive contaminants and the study of the degree of reliability degradation when the equipment is operated, outside the recommended envelope, in the allowable temperature-relative humidity range in geographies with high levels of gaseous and particulate contamination. The operating and external conditions of a modular data center, located in a Dallas industrial area, using air-side economizer is described. The reliability degradation of servers exposed to outside air via an airside economizer was determined qualitatively examining the corrosion of components in the servers and comparing the results to the corrosion of components in a non-operating server stored in a protective environment. The corrosion-related reliability of the servers over almost the life of the product was related to continuous temperature and relative humidity for the duration of the experiment. This work provides guidance for data center administration for similar environment. From an industry perspective, it should be noted that in the four years of operation in the hot and humid Dallas climate using only evaporative cooling or fresh air cooling, we have not seen a single server failure in our research pod. That performance should highlight an opportunity for significant energy savings for data center operators in a much broader geographic area than currently envisioned with evaporative cooling.

Present standards guiding the corporate governance of information technology (IT) provide useful frameworks for organizations’ governing bodies to direct the effective use of information technology (IT) within their organizations. However, existing standards still fail to resolve the dilemma regarding the actual allocation of IT roles and responsibilities between governing bodies and IT management, while such an allocation represents a major challenge in many contemporary organizations. To advance on this issue, we explore IT managers’ interpretation of the allocation of IT roles and responsibilities to either the governing body or managerial levels in nine Ibero-American Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). We used the ISO/IEC 38500 and COBIT standards to define a unique set of 212 management and governance activities and responsibilities. We surveyed 30 IT managers in Higher Education Institutions from nine Ibero-American countries and identified the divergence in the allocation of IT Governance and Management tasks between respondents and expert judgments. Using regression analysis, we show that the degree of such divergence depends on organizational contingency factors such as the formalization of IT procedures, centralization, the complexity of the organization, and the size of IT departments. This is the first study in the literature conducting a thorough analysis of IT task allocation between the governing level and the management level. This study is also the first to identify four organizational factors influencing the divergence between respondents and expert opinion regarding this allocation. The findings and propositions presented in this paper have the potential to extend our understanding of the IT governance dilemma in other professional organizations similar to HEIs.

IT Governance is a branch of the corporate governance system focused on information technology (IT) as well as performance and risk management. IT Governance is defined as the processes that ensure the effective and efficient use of IT in enabling an organization to achieve its goal. There are many different frameworks that can be used for managing the delivery of cost-effective IT services. IT managing the delivery of cost-effective IT services does not always give the advantage to the company. There are times when the IT managing the delivery of cost-effective IT services does not provide any benefit, it can cause IT Productivity Paradox. IT Productivity Paradox can be prevented, one is to analyze the processes undertaken with IT. From this analysis we will get the significance of the relationship processes with the IT Goal. The significance will be seen which one significant process and which one are not significant to the IT Goal. If the IT process there are not significant to the IT Goal, the process does not need to be repaired because it has no effect on IT Goal. Existing IT governance frameworks are COBIT, ITIL, ISO 20000, 17799/27001, Six Sigma, etc. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), initially developed in the UK by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), is gaining traction in the global IT community as a framework for IT governance. ISO 20000-focusing upon IT service management. ISO 17799 / ISO 27001 - focusing upon information. Six Sigma-focusing upon operational performance and defect identification. COBIT - framework for information IT management risks. Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) provides good practices across a domain and process framework and presents activities in a manageable and logical structure. COBIT’s good practices represent the consensus of experts. They are strongly focused more on control, less on execution. These practices will help optimise IT-enabled investments, ensure service delivery and provide a measure against which to judge when things do go wrong. This research is intend to find out whether Cobit mapping Business Goal to IT Goal appropriate with case study. The result The results using SEM approach shows that the mapping of COBIT is not significant in the case studies of academic administration.

The need for establishing a link between information technology (IT) management strategies and a firm's competitive strategy has been identified and discussed in the literature. In this paper, factors for measuring IT management sophistication are identified first. Then the effects of the competitive strategy on IT management sophistication are tested empirically. According to a survey of 213 managers, this study finds that competitive strategy has a direct impact on IT management sophistication. This paper concludes with implications for both researchers and practitioners.

Organizations are increasingly dependent on Information Technology (IT) and IT Management takes on greater importance each day. However the role of IT Management in many organizations has not gone much beyond being considered as a technological support and not as the strategic ally. Public institutions are no stranger to this reality. The present article presents the characteristics and It governance maturity level in 10 Peruvian public institutions as a result of a survey directed to 59 IT managers, on the principles of ISO/IEC 38500. The results show that there are weaknesses in the IT governance implementation and it is necessary to initiate a sensitization process to the authorities at the highest level to improve the current situation.

The University of Wisconsin - Madison Division of Information Technology (DoIT) Help Desk and Campus Computer Labs offers an opportunity for student employees to become involved in leadership roles by participating in the Student Leadership Project (SLP). This project provides student employees with real world experience in the management and delivery of information technology services. By gaining experience in conjunction with their academic career, students will be better prepared to enter the workforce by bringing with them a wealth of IT and business knowledge. The DoIT Help Desk and Campus Computer Labs employ approximately 125 staff with a mixture of fulltime personnel and part time student staff. The SLP students work in the Help Desk's call center, advanced support group and computer labs. They are full participants in managing and facilitating day-to-day operations (e.g., hiring, training, coach, schedule, etc.) and in maintaining the usability of all the computers in the production environment. This summer, we will be entering the fourth year of the Student Leadership Project. There are 10 leadership positions available for students with both a management and technical track. This presentation will provide an overview of the program with perspectives from the student leaders.

An overview of the motivation and objectives of this dissertation is provided in the first chapter.Additionally, the first section presents the main research question that guides this dissertation.After that, the systematic literature on IT management is introduced, which makes up Chapter Two of this dissertation.Afterwards, each of the three studies conducted as a part of this dissertation is introduced.Lastly, the first Chapter ends with a conclusion to the introduction.Chapter 1 reduced waste, fraud, waiting times, and the amount of labour required by humans in the primary fast-food ordering and hamburger preparation processes.A fast food restaurant's ordering procedure is simply one illustration of an information process in an organisation.It is used to demonstrate how widespread the benefits of managing information technology (IT) are in terms of increased productivity and improved services.Of course, hamburger restaurants are only a small subset of the organisations in our society.It is commonly known that IT is highly relevant in our current society.This can also be deducted from the size of worldwide IT spending, which will be an estimated $5,1 trillion in 2024 (Gartner [2023]).In 2017, 93% of European workplaces used computers and digital technology is applied for managing information in all types of jobs, including in sectors not traditionally related to digitisation such as farming, health care, and construction (Commission [2017]).The European Commission has set the target of pushing the 54% of the population who possess at least basic digital skills in 2021 to 80% in 2030 (Commission [2022]).Or, as Barisic et al. [2018] state, 'IT transforms all sectors of the economy and influences society in many different ways', and according to Zong and Wang [2022] 'IT profoundly affects the economic development of a country or region'.Industry 1.0 (mechanical production using water and steam) and 2.0 (mass production using electrical energy) from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are followed by IT-heavy successors: industry 3.0 (IT systems) and 4.0, that leverages the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Cloud Computing (Coppolino et al. [2021]; Demir et al. [2019]).Industry 5.0 is, although not yet clearly defined, also forecast to have a strong focus on IT over the harmonisation of working space and efficiency of humans and technology (Maddikunta et al. [2022]).This dissertation is placed in the field of 'IT Management'.The management of IT infrastructure and the assistance it provides organisations in controlling the risks and limitations associated with IT operations are widely acknowledged objectives of IT management (Hundal et al. [2022]).In addition to these operational tasks, IT management also involves strategic components such as product and service et al. [2016]) was preferred above covariance-based models such as LISREL and Artificial Neural Networks (Hackl and Westlund [2000]) as it deals more robustly with multicollinearity since the model reduces the biases of the estimates of large coefficients (Cassel and Westlund [1999]).PLS has shown this robustness in Monte Carlo simulations (Westlund and Parmler [2008]).Furthermore, PLS is shown to be robust to skewed data (Cassel and Westlund [1999]).Eleven out of twelve hypotheses on the Theory of Planned Behaviour were supported.There was just one hypothesis that could not be proven to be significant: that attitude regarding Project Management increases the intention to use PM.The results indicate that Subjective Norm has a significantly higher predictive power on intentions than Perceived Behavioural Control, which is contrary to the initial expectation.From a scientific perspective, this study confirms the robustness of TPB for describing Behaviour in IT management.The findings of this study provide practitioners with clear instruments to steer the behaviour of IT management.

Information technology and knowledge management are two important matters in the modern organizations of this era. The biggest factor in the success of knowledge management in the present era is the potential that information technology creates for it. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between information technology and knowledge management in the headquarters of the Social Security Organization. The research method was descriptive-correlational and the statistical population was 620 Experts and senior staff of headquarters of the social security organization. Of these, 237 were selected by random sampling method based on Cochran's formula. Collected information through questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS and LISREL softwares. The results indicated a significant relationship between information technology and knowledge management in the headquarters of the Social Security Organization as well as the relationship between information technology and knowledge management components such as (acquisition, creation, storage, distribution, maintenance). According to the Friedman test, knowledge storage was highly related to information technology in the organization under study.

Primary Health Care (PHC) serves as the frontline of national health systems, making digital transformation essential for improving service quality, efficiency, and coverage. This study aims to assess the level of Information Technology (IT) adoption and evaluate supporting management practices at Pusat Kesehatan Masyarakat (Puskesmas) in Indonesia. A descriptive quantitative approach was employed using official secondary data obtained from government institutions, including the Ministry of Health, BPJS Kesehatan, and the Central Statistics Agency, with West Java Province designated as the study area. The analysis encompassed five dimensions: infrastructure availability, utilization of clinical information systems (SIMPUS/ASIK), IT human resource capacity, service performance indicators, and IT management maturity. The results indicate a high adoption rate of basic infrastructure such as internet access and computers; however, the utilization of core clinical systems, including ASIK and PCare, varies considerably across Puskesmas. Limited availability of dedicated IT personnel and insufficient IT management training for leadership were identified as key constraints. Overall, successful digital transformation in PHC depends not only on adequate infrastructure but also on strengthened management practices, particularly in human resource capacity, data governance, and effective use of clinical information systems to achieve improved service outcomes.

In a global environment, a key challenge of health care and information technology (IT) management involves increasing the knowledge of human rights issues and addressing the health disparities that result when human rights are violated. This chapter aims to promote the awareness and protection of basic human rights as a 21st century imperative. Drawing upon the human rights conceptual framework, the chapter focuses on the following objectives: First, the chapter highlights direct and indirect linkages between health and human rights, with an introduction to the principles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other health-related human rights documents. Second, the relevance of the globalization and the human rights framework for health care and IT management will be discussed. Third, the chapter presents initiatives in IT management solutions and policies with promising potential to enhance the health care and human rights situations of people around the world.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the relationship between information technology, strategic leadership, and knowledge management on competitive advantage in chemical companies in Indonesia. Competitive advantage has become a major concern for companies in today's global market, especially the chemical industry. Based on an analysis of past research, there has been no research investigating information technology, strategic leadership, and overall knowledge management of competitive advantage in the context of chemical companies in Indonesia. Furthermore, the novelty of this research is to examine the relationship between information technology, leadership, and knowledge management on the competitive advantage in a research model. This study uses a quantitative method with a research population of chemical companies in Indonesia, total 1519 companies and a sample of 114 companies. The sampling technique uses an intentional sampling method, and the data analysis uses multiple regression analysis with SPPS 25. The results of this study indicate that information technology, strategic leadership, and knowledge management have a significant positive relationship with a competitive advantage. The implications of this study indicate that a manager's leadership strategy ability and the application of knowledge management for employees in this industry significantly influence competitive advantage. The use of information technology for strategic purposes should be more widely applied to increase competitive advantage.

Purpose– Cloud Computing (CC) technology is getting implemented rapidly in the educational sector to improve learning, research and other administrative process. As evident from the literature review, most of these implementations are happening in the western countries such as USA, UK, while the level of implementation of CC in developing countries such as India is rare. Moreover, implementing CC technology in the educational sector require various decisions to be made by the managers of the Information Technology (IT) department such as selecting suitable deployment model, vendor providing cloud service, etc. in their respective university or institute. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to address one such decision. Since, different types of CC deployment are available; selecting a suitable one plays a key role, as it might have an impact on the requirements of various stakeholders such as students, teachers, administrative staff (especially the staff members in the IT department), etc. apart from affecting the overall performance of the facilities such as a laboratory. Naturally, a proper decision by analysing multiple perspectives has to be made while carrying out such strategic initiatives by any educational institute.Design/methodology/approach– A case study methodology has been chosen as the research methodology to discuss and demonstrate the above decision problem that was faced in real time by one of the educational institutes in India, offering high-quality management education. The IT managers of this institute were planning to switch over to CC technology for the computer laboratory and they have to make a decision of choosing suitable alternative CC deployment models such as private cloud (PRC), public cloud (PUC), community cloud (COC), hybrid cloud (HYC), etc. by analysing and comparing them based on various factors and perspectives such as elasticity, availability, scalability, etc. Since, multiple factors are involved in making such a strategic decision, the most commonly used Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model – namely, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used as a decision support during the decision making process.Findings– The team of decision makers, who were planning to implement CC in the case institute, found that PRC is best as they believed that it would provide adequate cost savings, apart from providing necessary security to maintain confidential information such as student's detail, grades, etc.Research limitations/implications– The results obtained are based on a single case study. Hence, they cannot be generalized for institutions across educational sector. However, the decision making situation and understanding its impact on the stakeholders of the educational institute can be common across various educational institute.Practical implications– Using a real-life case study of an educational institute, this paper presented a strategic decision making situation, which needs to be considered by the IT managers of the educational institutes when they decide to switch over to CC technology. Various criteria to be considered during the decision making process was identified from the literature review were identified and enumerated. These factors would useful for the IT managers of the different educational institute and they can suitably add or delete these decision criteria as per their requirements and situation at hand. Moreover, the algorithm of AHP, which was used as a decision support, was presented in a step-by-step manner, which should be beneficial for the practitioners to apply the same for similar decision making situations.Originality/value– It is believed that this paper would be the first to report on a strategic decision of choosing the deployment model for CC technology especially in the educational sector. Similarly, this paper would also contribute to the field of CC, as it lists out the decision criteria that are to be considered for making the above decision, which has not got adequate importance. Lastly, this paper is also unique in the realm of AHP because application for a decision problem in the field of CC especially in the educational sector is least reported.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to determine if perceptions that women and men hold toward careers in information technology (IT) and toward women working in IT create potential barriers that may prevent women managers from pursuing careers in IT.Design/methodology/approachA field study was designed to test the hypotheses. The subjects were graduate students pursuing either an MBA or IT management degree.FindingsThe results revealed that males had greater self‐efficacy for IT occupations, greater passion for computing, and less positive attitudes toward capabilities of women in IT. Our prediction that career barriers would intensify for women who chose an IT management option was not supported. These findings suggest that traditional work role expectations concerning women's efficacy for careers in IT still persist.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was limited by its focus on subjects in the early stages of a management career. To gain a better understanding of the barriers that women face in IT career fields, longitudinal studies are needed to track these barriers throughout the career development process.Practical implicationsIf organisations want to attract, retain, and advance women managers in IT fields, they must proactively address gender role biases and create work environments that build self‐efficacy expectations for women, as well as for men.Originality/valueMuch of the research on career barriers women face in IT is based on qualitative studies and anecdotal evidence. This study provides empirical evidence that barriers still exist for women in IT despite the enhanced demand for IT professionals and managers over the past decade.

Data center (DC) electricity use is increasing at an annual rate of over 20% and presents a concern for the Information Technology (IT) industry, governments, and the society. A large fraction of the energy use is consumed by the compressor cooling to maintain the recommended operating conditions for IT equipment. The most common way to improve the DC efficiency is achieved by optimally provisioning the cooling power to match the global heat dissipation in the DC. However, at a more granular level, the large range of heat densities of today's IT equipment makes the task of provisioning cooling power optimized to the level of individual computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units much more challenging. Distributed sensing within a DC enables the development of new strategies to improve energy efficiency, such as hot spot elimination through targeted cooling, matching power consumption at rack level with workload schedule, and minimizing power losses. The scope of Measurement and Management Technologies (MMT) is to develop a software tool and the underlying sensing technology to provide critical decision support and control for DC and telecommunication facilities (TF) operations. A key aspect of MMT technology is integration of modeling tools to understand how changes in one operational parameter affect the overall DC response. It is demonstrated that reduced ordered models for DC can generate, in less than 2 seconds computational time, a three dimensional thermal model in a 50 kft{sup 2} DC. This rapid modeling enables real time visualization of the DC conditions and enables 'what if' scenarios simulations to characterize response to 'disturbances'. One such example is thermal zone modeling that matches the cooling power to the heat generated at a local level by identifying DC zones cooled by a specific CRAC. Turning off a CRAC unit can be simulated to understand how the other CRAC utilization changes and how server temperature responds. Several new sensing technologies were added to the existing MMT platform: (1) air contamination (corrosion) sensors, (2) power monitoring, and (3) a wireless environmental sensing network. All three technologies are built on cost effective sensing solutions that increase the density of sensing points and enable high resolution mapping of DCs. The wireless sensing solution enables Air Conditioning Unit (ACU) control while the corrosion sensor enables air side economization and can quantify the risk of IT equipment failure due to air contamination. Validation data for six test sites demonstrate that leveraging MMT energy efficiency solutions combined with industry best practices results in an average of 20% reduction in cooling energy, without major infrastructure upgrades. As an illustration of the unique MMT capabilities, a data center infrastructure efficiency (DCIE) of 87% (industry best operation) was achieved. The technology is commercialized through IBM System and Technology Lab Services that offers MMT as a solution to improve DC energy efficiency. Estimation indicates that deploying MMT in existing DCs can results in an 8 billion kWh savings and projection indicates that constant adoption of MMT can results in obtainable savings of 44 billion kWh in 2035. Negotiations are under way with business partners to commercialize/license the ACU control technology and the new sensor solutions (corrosion and power sensing) to enable third party vendors and developers to leverage the energy efficiency solutions.