Pitfalls and Triumphs of Information Technology Management

Citation

Cronau, D.A. (2001), "Pitfalls and Triumphs of Information Technology Management", The Electronic Library, Vol. 19 No. 5, pp. 352-356. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2001.19.5.352.4

“This book is a collection of real‐life cases that focus on both achievements attained with the successful utilization of information technology as well as failures suffered as a result of substandard use and management of IT resources in organizations. The cases included in this book deal with issues that affect a wide variety of organizations – large and small businesses, government organizations and educational institutions.”

This is a great resource for every library and librarian, every IT manager or aspiring manager, and every business or IT student. There are case studies here that provide a wealth of both theoretical and practical examples of the use and management of information technology resources from a variety of organizations.

There can be no better way to learn than to listen to the experiences of others … learning from others’ mistakes. To achieve a better understanding of pitfalls and success of IT in organizations, more than 40 IT scholars, researchers and managers have shared their experiences in this volume. This publication consists of 22 real‐life cases on all aspects of IT utilization and management in organizations throughout the world. The cases included in this publication report many success and failure stories related to IT management in modern organizations.

The Preface begins with a paragraph in summary of each of the cases. The Contents pages not only list the chapters or cases but also provide details of the organization to which the writer(s) belong and the country they are from. The breadth of coverage can be seen best by looking at some of the cases:

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  ACEnet: Facilitating economic development through small business electronic commerce.

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  An Expectation of Privacy: when does an employer have the right to monitor employee e‐mail messages?

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  Canon Financial Services, Inc.: the systems and methods committee.

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  Case Study of the St. Paul Companies virtual office for the risk control division.

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  E*Trade Securities, Inc., Pioneer on‐line trader, struggles to stay on top.

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  Gaucherie: information systems to support chemical analysis in geological research.

If the above example isn’t broad enough, other cases involve: travelTrack, Electronic Medical Records, Mobile Technology, Internet Upgrades, Mortgage Companies, Knowledge‐Based Service Industry, Police Call Centre Project – Offence Reporting Process in Tasmania, Department of Defense in the US – Telemedicine, Crisis Management, Social Services and Information Systems Redesign, and Electronic Document Management.

The bibliographies are useful and appropriate, the two‐page index is concise and useable, the figures and tables are clear, timely, supportive of text and well produced. The book is well set out and spaced with nice use of fonts and bold print.

What is excellent about this book is the honesty with which it is written. The warts and all approach by an extremely broad section of the Western world’s private, government, and public information technology users means there is something for everybody in this book.