CHANGING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

Information technology is changing at a rapid rate. A theory has hypot hesized that change in IT causes problems for IT managers and that the y respond with coping mechanisms to handle these problems. Structured interviews with 16 IT professionals at different organizations identif ied 31 unique projects that used 86 new ITs which caused 142 problems. Eleven categories summarized the problems. The most common were train ing demands, vendor oversell, acquisition dilemmas, new integration, s upport burden, vendor neglect, and resistance. The eleven categories a lso summarized the coping mechanisms applied to these problems. The mo st common of these were education and training, inaction, internal sup port, vendor support, new procedures, and persuasion. This research pr ovides practicing IT managers with alternative perspectives on the pro blems and a variety of coping mechanisms from which to choose. It also provides suggestions for future researchers. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scienc e B.V.