Information Technology Leadership Research Articles

She’s worth IT: challenges for female CIOs in ensuring IT security compliance

PurposeIT security compliance is critical to the organization’s success, and such compliance depends largely on IT leadership. Considering the prevalence of unconscious gender biases and stereotyping at the workplace and growing female leadership in IT, the authors examine how the internalization of stereotype beliefs, in the form of the employee’s gender, impacts the relationships between leadership characteristics and IT security compliance intentions.Design/methodology/approachA controlled experiment using eight different vignettes manipulating Chief Information Officer (CIO) gender (male/female), Information Technology (IT) expertise (low/high) and leadership style (transactional/transformational) was designed in Qualtrics. Data were gathered from MTurk workers from all over the US.FindingsThe findings suggest that both CIOs' and employees' gender play an important role in how IT leadership characteristics – perceived expertise and leadership style – influence the employees' intentions and reactance to comply with CIO security recommendations.Research limitations/implicationsThis study's findings enrich the security literature by examining the role of leadership styles on reactance and compliance intentions. They also provide important theoretical implications based on gender stereotype theory alone: First, the glass ceiling effects can be witnessed in how men and women employees demonstrate prejudice against women CIO leaders through their reliance on perceived quadratic CIO IT expertise in forming compliance intentions. Secondly, this study's findings related to gender role internalization show men and women have a prejudice against gender-incongruent roles wherein women employees are least resistive to transactional male CIOs, and men employees are less inclined to comply with transactional female CIOs confirm the findings related to gender internationalization from Hentschel et al. (2019).Practical implicationsThis study highlights the significance of organizations and individuals actively promoting gender equality and fostering environments that recognize women's achievements. It also underscores the importance of educating men and women about the societal implications of stereotyping gender roles that go beyond the organizational setting. This research demonstrates that a continued effort is required to eradicate biases stemming from gender stereotypes and foster social inclusion. Such efforts can positively influence how upcoming IT leaders and employees internalize gender-related factors when shaping their identities.Social implicationsThis study shows that more work needs to be done to eliminate gender stereotype biases and promote social inclusion to positively impact how future IT leaders and employees shape their identities through internalization.Originality/valueThis study redefines the concept of “sticky floors” to explain how subordinates can hinder and undermine female leaders, thereby contributing to the glass ceiling effect. In addition, the study elucidates how gender roles shape employees' responses to different leadership styles through gender stereotyping and internalization.

Using information technology to integrate tobacco use treatment in routine oncology care: Lessons learned from the U.S. Cancer Center Cessation Initiative Cancer Centers.

Cancer patients who receive evidence-based tobacco-dependence treatment are more likely to quit and remain abstinent, but tobacco treatment programs (TTPs) are not consistently offered. In 2017, the U.S. National Cancer Institute, through the Cancer Moonshot, funded the Cancer Center Cessation Initiative (C3I). C3I supports 52 cancer centers to implement and expand evidence-based tobacco treatment in routine oncology care. Integration into routine care involves the use of health information technology (IT), including modifying electronic health records and clinical workflows. Here, we examine C3I cancer centers' IT leadership involvement and experiences in tobacco-dependence treatment implementation. This qualitative study of C3I-funded cancer centers integrated data from online surveys and in-person, semistructured interviews with IT leaders. We calculated descriptive statistics of survey data and applied content analysis to interview transcripts. Themes regarding IT personnel included suggestions to involve IT early, communicate regularly, understand the roles and influence of the IT team, and match program design with IT funding and resources. Themes regarding electronic health record (EHR) modifications included beginning modifications early to account for long lead time to make changes, working with IT to identify and adapt existing EHR tools for TTP or designing tools that will support a desired workflow developed with end-users, and working with IT personnel to make sure TTPs comply with system and state policies (e.g., privacy laws). The experiences of C3I cancer centers regarding the use of health IT to enhance tobacco-dependence treatment program implementation can guide cancer centers and community oncology practices to potentially enhance TTP implementation and patient outcomes.

An Effect of the Secondary School Teachers Information Technology Leadership on Job Satisfaction in China; Focusing on the Mediating Effect of Teacher-Efficacy and Communication Ability

본 연구는 중학생이 지각한 부모 양육태도와 교사애착관계, 학업성취, 학업무기력 간의 관계를 검증하기 위해 수행되었다. 이를 위해 한국 아동․청소년패널조사 2018(KYCPS 2018)의 중학교 1학년 패널자료를 활용하여 SPSS 21.0과 AMOS 21.0로 결과를 분석하였으며 연구결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 연구모형의 적합도를 검증한 결과, 양호한 적합도 지수를 보였으며 집중타 당성과 판별타당성 검증을 통해 모형의 적합성을 확보할 수 있었다. 둘째, 변인 간의 직접적인 영향력을 살펴본 결과, 부모의 긍정적 양육태도는 교사애착관계에 유의한 정적 영향을 미치고 학업무기력에는 유의한 부적 영향을 미쳤으며 부정적 양육태도는 학업무기력에 유의한 정적 영향을 미쳤으나 학업성취에는 유의한 영향을 미치지 않았다. 교사애착관계는 학업성취와 학업 무기력에 유의한 정적 영향을 미쳤으며, 학업성취는 학업무기력에 유의한 부적 영향을 미쳤다. 셋째, 교사애착관계와 학업성취의 매개효과를 확인한 결과, 교사애착관계 및 학업성취는 긍정적 양육태도와 학업무기력을 순차매개하는 것으로 나타났다. 더불어, 교사애착관계는 긍정적 양육태도와 학업성취 사이에서 완전매개를, 학업성취는 교사애착관계와 학업무기력 사이에서 부분매개함을 알 수 있었다. 이와 같은 결과는 중학생의 학업장면에서 학생의 교사애착관계가 학업성취 및 학업무기력에 중요한 영향을 미침을 밝힌 것에 의의가 있다. 본 연구결과와 의의를 토대로 연구의 한계와 후속연구를 위한 안내를 제시하였다.

Tackling the Burden of Electronic Health Record Use Among Physicians in a Mental Health Setting: Physician Engagement Strategy.

The burden associated with using the electronic health record system continues to be a critical issue for physicians and is potentially contributing to physician burnout. At a large academic mental health hospital in Canada, we recently implemented a Physician Engagement Strategy focused on reducing the burden of electronic health record use through close collaboration with clinical leadership, information technology leadership, and physicians. Built on extensive stakeholder consultation, this strategy highlights initiatives that we have implemented (or will be implementing in the near future) under four components: engage, inspire, change, and measure. In this viewpoint paper, we share our process of developing and implementing the Physician Engagement Strategy and discuss the lessons learned and implications of this work.

Trust Leadership: A Work-from-Home Scenario in IT Sector During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The study covers aspects of leadership trust among the information technology (IT) employees in India, with the help of data collected from a cross section of 205 IT employees. The article has assessed leadership trust factor from the employee’s (workforce) perspective with COVID19 pandemic and work-from-home situation. The outcome of data establishes a positive relationship between leadership trust and factors such as communication, decision-making, integrity, and motivation. The study also suggests that the IT sector and its leadership have created a positive trust among the employees during the COVID-19 work-from-home scenario. Findings suggest that in areas like integrity and making decisions quickly, the IT leadership has exhibited high trust levels, while in some other areas like communication and keeping the employees motivated (inspired), there have been few minor gaps that require attention from the leadership, which could preclude the wilting of established trust between the leader and his employees.

Redeployment of dermatologists during COVID-19: Implementation of a large-scale, centralized results management infrastructure

On March 13, 2020, the White House declared a State of Emergency in response to the growing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.1Proclamation No. 9994, 85 F.R. 15337 (March 18, 2020).Google Scholar As health systems across the country fortified themselves to treat and limit infection, they shared a common goal: to test large numbers of patients and swiftly disseminate test results. Discussions of COVID-19 results have added complexity, because they must address patient questions on symptom management, test interpretation, self-isolation, and our evolving understanding of the disease.2Ai T, Yang Z, Hou H, et al. Correlation of chest CT and RT-PCR testing in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China: a report of 1014 cases [e-pub ahead of print]. Radiology. https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.202020064, Accessed May 30, 2020.Google Scholar,3Yang Y, Yang M, Shen C, et al. Evaluating the accuracy of different respiratory specimens in the laboratory diagnosis and monitoring the viral shedding of 2019-nCoV infections [preprint]. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.11.20021493.Google Scholar The scale, infectivity, and public health implications of COVID-19 have required health systems to rapidly develop new workflows and to redeploy physicians to support these operations. Dermatologists are well-suited to manage test results, because patient evaluation and counseling are integral to our practice, and we can redirect these skills to guide patients on COVID-19. At Penn Medicine, we have rapidly redeployed our dermatology department to create a COVID-19 Results Management team. An Applied Informatics Specialist/Physician Builder within our faculty spearheaded this effort in collaboration with Penn's Information Technology leadership. On March 25, our department began covering all ambulatory COVID-19 results, and in our first week of operation, we processed 2222 results. On March 30, we expanded our efforts to include all COVID-19, respiratory virus panel, and influenza results for all discharged patients seen in our 5 emergency departments and our urgent care center. In our first month, we managed a total of 14,296 results (Fig 1). Critical to our performance has been the rapid reconfiguration of our electronic health record, EpicCare, to identify all patients with new COVID-19 results from all ambulatory practices across the health system. This report of patients is run 3 times every day. Patients who are positive and negative populate electronic patient lists that are shared within our team of 85 providers, who volunteer for half-day shifts. An early, critical discovery was the need to manually confirm the laboratory result within each patient's medical record, because the EpicCare sorting strategy is not 100% accurate. Furthermore, we created department-level documentation tools (SmartPhrases) that allow for standardization of the language and resources provided to patients. The content of these SmartPhrases was developed in collaboration with our internal medicine and infectious disease colleagues and vetted for accuracy and consistency. This standardization allows us to collectively update our recommendations as new COVID-19 guidelines emerge while also enabling providers to give patient-specific advice for positive, negative, and indeterminate results (Fig 2). The SmartPhrases also contain background SmartData elements that allow us to track patient severity, outreach, and enrollment in internal COVID-19 monitoring initiatives. All providers use these documentation tools without exception, which ensures fidelity to our tracking system. We have rapidly redeployed our dermatology workforce to handle all COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory virus panel results from all emergency department and ambulatory test sites within our health care system. We have developed a sustainable, scalable strategy that can incorporate other departments as we resume normal dermatology clinical operations. Through this model, our department has continued to address urgent dermatologic needs while also supporting Penn Medicine's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Investigating the Process of Developing and Retaining Competent IT Personnel: The Role of IT Leadership

Given the critical role of information technology (IT) in achieving organizations’ strategic goals, it becomes increasingly important for organizations to develop and retain a competent IT workforce. We investigate how organizations make IT personnel feel content with their job, motivate them to perform at their best, and consequently retain them. We develop a model in which IT leadership, conceptualized as “transformational” and “transactional” IT leader behaviors, influences IT personnel’s perceptions of requisite soft skills and IT personnel’s Quality-of-Work-Life (QWL), and how IT personnel’s QWL in turn affects IT personnel’s intention to stay. Using survey data from 205 IT professionals, we found that IT leadership behaviors, particularly transformational leadership behaviors, positively influence IT personnel’s intention to stay. We also found that this relationship is fully mediated by IT personnel’s QWL. In addition, we found that transformational leadership behaviors positively influence IT personnel’s perceptions of requisite soft skills. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice.

Effective leadership development in information technology: building transformational and emergent leaders

PurposeEffective leadership has been the focus of much research in recent years, but leadership development is still understudied. Information technology (IT) continues to grow in importance due to the industries IT creates, the industries IT disrupts, and the potential IT holds for all companies. Because leadership is highly context bound, the purpose of this paper is to examine leadership development in the IT context to take first steps toward establishing best practices for IT leadership development.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual paper reviews leadership in general before performing an integrated literature review of leadership as it has been studied in the IT context. Then the paper presents three propositions regarding effective IT leadership development.FindingsIT leadership development should involve formal mentoring, robust feedback that is integrated into the development plan, and should be treated as a core process for long-term success. Emergent and transformational leadership are important for IT.Practical implicationsIt behooves IT departments to implement the leadership development programs proposed here because leadership has been identified as one of the most difficult skills to find in IT employees. The findings can inform training professionals exploring ways to improve the leadership capacity and leadership development in the IT units of their organizations.Originality/valueThe paper’s literature review uncovered no quantitative peer-reviewed research on leadership development in the IT context, suggesting an area of need for further empirical studies. Researchers and practitioners alike will benefit from a greater understanding of leadership development in IT.

Leadership in Information Technology: Leadership theories, perspectives and ethical dilemmas

This paper will describe various leadership theories and how they were formed, current leadership perspectives for information technology (IT) and the impact they can have on an IT workforce due to negative impressions and conditions. It will then relate current ethical issues faced by Information Technology to the key driving forces behind IT today along with detailing the current ethical issues faced by IT Leadership. Finally it will recommend some future research to help IT Leadership navigate the ethical and leadership issues faced today and to prepare for the future issues that will appear as technology advances.

Interactive Systems Regarding Global Software Development and Offshoring

Modern information technology (IT) methods are reshaping the global market with great success. With today's global software industry, IT has made innovations everywhere, including businesses and consumer practices. This has made developing countries like India and China participate in the global market. This communication focuses on intelligent interacting systems which are present over globe and these are a source of rising the software development cycle with the help of modern communication facilities. Free e-Market globalization is now vital for billions of people. However, IT leadership is not possible without a review of the existing system. The present study is based over the issue of the global market related research, education and investment in IT technology. IT-based-leadership can give sustainable global competitive advantage to our country. So the role of iterative software development is crucial to be targeted in a systematic fashion.

Understanding IT Governance Effectiveness in Asia: An Event Study

The study seeks to examine the impact of Information technology (IT) governance structure, process and relational mechanisms on firm performance. Using an event study, we collected a sample of 70 announcements of IT governance adoption investments. We found that most firms adopt all three types of IT governance mechanisms. IT governance structural mechanisms have a positive impact on firm’s profitability. In contrast, IT governance process and relational mechanisms have a negative association with firm performance. More interestingly, the findings provide insight for organizations that they should realize the potentially negative impact of the controls requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley Act Section 404 and IT leadership on firm performance.

Data PointsTransforming Health Care: The Financial Impact Of Technology, Electronic Tools, And Data Mining By Fasano Philip Hoboken (NJ) : Wiley , 2013 240 pp., $75.00

Data PointsTransforming Health Care: The Financial Impact Of Technology, Electronic Tools, And Data Mining By Fasano Philip Hoboken (NJ) : Wiley , 2013 240 pp., $75.00

Determinants of Information Technology Leadership Program

Information Technology (IT) is an important factor to the success of an organization as it will align and coordinating the organization to their right tracks to achieve the organizational goals. It is essential to maintaining our leadership and success. It is not surprising because IT offers enormous benefits for organizations to grow their leadership skills and societal development. In order to cope with the problems in managing people, it is important to focus on IT leadership program in motivating employees. The current gap on leadership is on evaluation and measurement of the impacts towards the employee’s attitude, mainly the organization that are being engaged with. This paper addresses the gap by providing a discussion on IT leadership program on evaluation of employees and information reporting. The evaluation using the leadership approach will not only create a holistic evaluation process, but it will also assist in fostering innovative organization and technology.

School Finance and Learning: Are We Leveraging State Aid to Get All We Can Out of It?

After spending some twenty-five years working on schoolfinancefortheNewYorkStateEducationDepartment,Ihadtheopportunitytoworkoneducationreform for the State of Nevada. As Deputy Superintendent for Business and Support Services, I oversaw state aid to school districts, information technology, audit services, and child nutrition. I also served as Education Department liaison to the 77th session of the Nevada Legislature. Although my sojourn in Nevada, lasting little more than a year, was brief compared with my work in New York, the experience gave me perspective on how two states were implementing school finance and reform. Recent reforms in both states were driven in large part by the federal Race to the Top competition, but the approaches to reform were quite different. Key features of the education environment in Nevada—basic student services and a strong inclination against raising taxes—worked to keep school spending low, the sixth lowestschoolspendinginthenationat$8,419perpupil. New York State, in contrast, is a large-enrollment, highspending, and high-taxing state. Consequently, spending per pupil on education is among the highest in the nation, at $16,239 per pupil. 1 In 2011, the state reached the breaking point, however, and enacted laws to limit growth into the future for education revenues raised from the property tax and distributed as state aid to school districts.

People, organizational, and leadership factors impacting informatics support for clinical and translational research

BackgroundIn recent years, there have been numerous initiatives undertaken to describe critical information needs related to the collection, management, analysis, and dissemination of data in support of biomedical research (J Investig Med 54:327-333, 2006); (J Am Med Inform Assoc 16:316–327, 2009); (Physiol Genomics 39:131-140, 2009); (J Am Med Inform Assoc 18:354–357, 2011). A common theme spanning such reports has been the importance of understanding and optimizing people, organizational, and leadership factors in order to achieve the promise of efficient and timely research (J Am Med Inform Assoc 15:283–289, 2008). With the emergence of clinical and translational science (CTS) as a national priority in the United States, and the corresponding growth in the scale and scope of CTS research programs, the acuity of such information needs continues to increase (JAMA 289:1278–1287, 2003); (N Engl J Med 353:1621–1623, 2005); (Sci Transl Med 3:90, 2011). At the same time, systematic evaluations of optimal people, organizational, and leadership factors that influence the provision of data, information, and knowledge management technologies and methods are notably lacking.MethodsIn response to the preceding gap in knowledge, we have conducted both: 1) a structured survey of domain experts at Academic Health Centers (AHCs); and 2) a subsequent thematic analysis of public-domain documentation provided by those same organizations. The results of these approaches were then used to identify critical factors that may influence access to informatics expertise and resources relevant to the CTS domain.ResultsA total of 31 domain experts, spanning the Biomedical Informatics (BMI), Computer Science (CS), Information Science (IS), and Information Technology (IT) disciplines participated in a structured surveyprocess. At a high level, respondents identified notable differences in theaccess to BMI, CS, and IT expertise and services depending on the establishment of a formal BMI academic unit and the perceived relationship between BMI, CS, IS, and IT leaders. Subsequent thematic analysis of the aforementioned public domain documents demonstrated a discordance between perceived and reported integration across and between BMI, CS, IS, and IT programs and leaders with relevance to the CTS domain.ConclusionDifferences in people, organization, and leadership factors do influence the effectiveness of CTS programs, particularly with regard to the ability to access and leverage BMI, CS, IS, and IT expertise and resources. Based on this finding, we believe that the development of a better understanding of how optimal BMI, CS, IS, and IT organizational structures and leadership models are designed and implemented is critical to both the advancement of CTS and ultimately, to improvements in the quality, safety, and effectiveness of healthcare.

Employee retention within the Information Technology Division of a South African Bank

Orientation: The information technology industry is faced with a shrinking pool of skilled employees causing demand to increase for these employees. This places organisations under pressure to devise retention strategies to retain these employees. This study was conducted in the Information Technology Division of a South African Bank.Research purpose: To understand the challenges faced by the bank’s information technology leadership team to retain employees.Motivation for the study: To understand the challenges faced in attracting and retaining information technology professionals, and how this can serve as input for reducing skills shortages in Information Technology Divisions.Research design, approach and method: An interpretive approach employing a case study strategy and qualitative methods was employed. Semi structured interviews were conducted with thirteen senior managers and four directors of the bank’s Information Technology Division, who were selected on a purposive basis. Data were subjected to Creswell’s four stage data analysis process.Main findings: Findings indicate that employee turnover is the main contributor of skills shortages within the studied division. The lack of a retention strategy is making it difficult for leadership to identify crucial skills that must be retained.Practical/managerial implications: Evidence suggests that this bank, although they would like to retain information technology professionals, is not creating an environment conducive to do this, as little attention is paid to the unique demands of this group of employees.Contribution/value-add: This study investigates a specific group of employees for which a unique retention strategy does not exist. In understanding the challenges that impact on attracting and retaining information technology professionals, this study can contribute to the development of a retention strategy for these employees.

Leadership and teams in business: a study of IT projects in the United Arab Emirates

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of leadership and team processes in information technology (IT) projects in business environments. The paper contextualizes the study in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).Design/methodology/approachThe paper addresses two central questions: what is the level of IT project team effectiveness in the UAE context? What is the maturity level of leadership in IT project management in the UAE? A tailored instrument, based on Cohen and Bailey's team effectiveness evaluation model, was used in this study of 42 project teams in the UAE across various sectors.FindingsThe findings demonstrate that IT projects in the UAE demonstrate a maturity level that is transactional, with task‐focused teams and people‐oriented leadership styles.Research limitations/implicationsThe implications of the paper can facilitate broader contextualized research on leadership and IT project team effectiveness, with particular emphasis on developing economies. This is important in addressing the issue of high failure rates in IT projects in general.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the role of leadership and its responsibility in facilitating teams in technical and high failure environments can impact on productivity and success rates in future projects.Originality/valueThis paper is unique in providing collated opinion about constructs within IT project team processes and leadership effectiveness in the context of businesses in developing economies. The use of a maturity structure addressing leadership, trust, teams and cohesion is distinctive.

Information Technology Leadership Challenges – Past, Present, and Future1

Based on my extensive field experience, I present my view of the challenges to be faced by leaders of the IS organization of the future. Prescriptions are provided for leveraging trends in technology, providing business value, managing external and internal resources, and excellent execution.

IT leadership from a problem solving perspective

Information Technology (IT) leadership is a domain in need of investigation and development. Here, we present a general model for problem solving leadership and describe our application of that model to IT organizations, with special attention to the role of the Chief Information Officer (CIO). We tested the real-world value of this model through intensive interviews with 26 senior IT executives of major organizations, from which we identified four key leadership challenges facing CIOs today: (1) bridging cognitive gaps; (2) building and managing problem solving diversity; (3) shifting focus to process; and (4) solving problems and managing change. Integrating problem solving concepts with insights gained from the interviews, we offer practical approaches for aligning IT with business objectives, transforming the image of IT, and managing change, among other recommendations.

The Value of Provider-to-Provider Telehealth

Telehealth has great potential to improve access to care, but its adoption in routine healthcare has been slow. The lack of clarity about the value of telehealth implementations has been one reason cited for this slow adoption. The Center for Information Technology Leadership has examined the value of telehealth encounters in which there is a provider both with the patient and at a distance from the patient. We considered three models of telehealth: store-and-forward, real-time video, and hybrid systems. Evidence from the literature was extrapolated using a computer simulation, which found that the hybrid model was the most cost effective. The simulation predicted savings of $4.3 billion per year if hybrid telehealth systems were implemented in emergency rooms, prisons, nursing home facilities, and physician offices across the United States. We also conducted a sensitivity analysis to determine which factors most influence costs and savings. Payers, providers, and policymakers should work together to remove the barriers to the adoption of telehealth so that this cost savings can be realized in the U.S. healthcare system.