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Examines gender differences in occupational stress and coping strategies among information technology (IT) personnel in Singapore. Data were collected via a combination of mail surveys and semi‐structured interviews. Analyses results of the survey using analysis of covariance procedures. Female IT personnel reported significantly higher scores on sources of stress originating from “factors intrinsic to the job”, “managerial role”, “career and achievement”, “organizational structure and climate”, and “relationships with others”. Contrary to initial prediction, no significant gender difference was found for stress originating from “home‐work interface”. With respect to coping strategies, female IT personnel tend to seek social support and talk to others when they experience stress, while men tend to suppress their emotions and deal with problems in a logical and unemotional manner. Discusses implications of findings.

The monograph analyses (a) the potential impact of information technology (IT) on organisational issues that directly concern the personnel function; (b) the nature of personnel’s involvement in the decision making and activities surrounding the choice and implementation of advanced technologies, and (c) their own use of IT in developing and carrying out their own range of specialist activities. The monograph attempts to explain why personnel’s involvement is often late, peripheral and reactive. Finally, an analysis is made of whether personnel specialists – or the Human Resource Management function more generally – will play a more proactive role in relation to such technologies in the future.

Practitioners who work with information technology (IT) are reported to be experiencing rising levels of work‐related stress. The origins of the stress coming from increasing demands from system users, advances in technology, and the growing use of information and communication technologies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of intra‐ and inter‐organizational business activities. In the field of information systems, stress‐related research has been limited and the way in which IT personnel cope with stress has not been explored. Thus, the research presented in this paper investigates whether coping and affect (both negative and positive) influence adjustment (anxiety, depression and stress) among IT personnel.

A sample of 100 IT personnel from Australia completed a questionnaire, which contained measures for adjustment, affect state, and coping strategies. The use of hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that specific individual characteristics influenced the psychological adjustment of the IT personnel sampled.

IT personnel who engaged in a more problem‐focused style of coping, such as active coping were found to be better adjusted than those who engaged in a more emotion‐focused styles of coping, such as cognitive‐avoidance coping, social coping, accepting responsibility, and self‐controlling coping. Serendipitously, the research revealed that increased depression of IT personnel was associated with positive affect.

The research shows that the psychological adjustment of IT personnel is influenced by the types of coping strategies they use, specific individual demographics and their affect state.

Discusses the problems faced when designing and delivering IT programmes for Personnel practitioners and students. Argues that the future provision of IT teaching of personnel programmes depends on the provision of teaching materials, staff training programmes and the diversity of student experience.

Although in most organisations the personnel function is now an accepted part of the management team, that acceptance may have been achieved at a substantial cost. It will be argued here that in moving towards an unequivocally managerial position, much of the distinctive contribution of the personnel function has been lost. This move can be interpreted as a natural and realistic appreciation of the position of personnel practitioners. Yet, at the same time, it may have undermined the value and potential contribution that personnel specialists have to offer organisations.

A national survey shows that personnel specialists are still failing to exploit fully the benefits of information technology (IT) in their own work. In seeking to explain this, looks at the IT skills and knowledge of personnel specialists and their attitudes towards the use of IT. While these provide part of the explanation for the under‐utilization of IT, argues that more important inhibitions derive from the professional values of personnel specialists and their political power within organizations.

The employment practices of major American companies underwent a marked transformation in the fifteen-year period dating roughly from the beginning of World War I to the oncoming of the Great Depression in late 1929 (Jacoby, 1985; Lescohier, 1935). At the start of World War I, the practice of personnel management was unknown in American industry. Instead, employment practices were largely informal, unscientific and administered in a decentralized, often heavy-handed and capricious manner by foremen and gang bosses. Labor was typically viewed as a commodity to be bought for as little possible and used for only as long as needed, leading to an employment relationship that was short-term and insecure. The prevailing methods of management were also highly autocratic and arbitrary, with workers expected to obey whatever orders were given and at risk of being fired for any offense real or imagined.

Although there has been much publicity about the Internet, empirical research focusing on it is still relatively sparse. Most research on the Internet has been carried out in Europe or USA rather than Asia. This study examines the differential effects of occupation on Internet usage in an Asian country, namely, Singapore. Data were collected on Internet users via a questionnaire placed on the World Wide Web. From three main occupational groups (students, non‐IT personnel and IT personnel) 1,299 usable responses were obtained. Differential effects of occupation in terms of Internet usage patterns, tasks preferences and factors affecting an enjoyable Internet experience were examined.

The use of management consultants is an accepted fact in management practice — in all management functions and in all sectors of the economy. Indeed, a great deal of money is spent in the UK on management consultancy each year. Wood estimates that, in 1982, around £170 million was spent on management consultancy. Assignments carried out within the area of personnel management alone accounted for some 15–20 per cent of this total. Yet, the presence of management consultants within organisations is often overlooked. There is scant mention of consultants in the huge array of prescriptive and descriptive literature on management. (One exception within the realms of personnel management is Purcell.) This absence is both interesting and curious. It is curious because so many organisations — both public and private, large and small — use consultants in some form or another. The use of consultants ought, therefore, to be an accepted fact of life in the management of organisations and by those writing about management.

In many organisations, changes in organisational structure and the introduction of technology are occurring simultaneously, impacting upon personnel in many different ways. The process of such changes, how they interrelate and how they affect personnel are discussed, through examining some of the findings of a recent research project. It is argued that the interrelating developments of decentralisation, line management access to the personnel database and the use of IT not only affects the relationship of the personnel function to the line but also strengthens the position of management in relation to the workforce. Benefits brought by the introduction of computerised personnel systems are related to organisational culture, i.e. the existing status of the personnel function within the organisation and the structure of the organisation, rather than the extent of the use of computers within it.