INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Information Technology in Public Organisations

Information Technology in Public Organisations

Introduction

In the 1980s, the expression information technology (IT) appeared in the MIS field in competition with two previous terms, management information system (MIS) and information system (IS). The success of the new IT concept is related to spectacular progress realized in the networks, machines, and person-machine interface domains—progress that redefined the new potential of information systems of any kind (Feldman & Klaas, 2002). With the dramatic development of communications networks since the 1980s (local and wide area networks, digitalization of old telephone company networks, digital cellular phone networks and deployment of the Internet, networks of networks), which was accompanied by massive deployment of optical fibre, new wireless capabilities, and the availability of a shared network protocol (TCP/IP, the Internet protocol), it has become apparent that information technology is really the fusion of communication, processing, storage, and multimedia interface capabilities (Parker, 1996). The key role played by communication networks explains the European expression ICT, which stands for information and communication technology. This study highlights the facts that how information technology in public organisations is playing an important role in changing its structure and activities, and processes.

Technological Improvements

The technological improvements that created an integrated IT platform among public organisations, customers, and suppliers paved the way for new organisational forms (electronic markets, virtual firms, modular companies, industry networks) through horizontal or vertical company and inter-company integration. Since the early 1990s, the new potential of IT (or ICT in Europe) has triggered a movement to reengineer or redesign business processes (Marchand, Davenport & Dickson, 2000), identifying the firm's performance as a direct consequence of the mix of IT investments and redefinition of business processes. Thus, the quest for organisational performance through IT integration has redefined the boundaries of training and learning tasks, activities, and processes. (Parker, 1996)

The concepts of IT, MIS, and information management (IM) can be thought of as a continuum of practices, from IT infrastructure management to the development and implementation of information systems and the production of value through information management (Galliers & Baets, 1998). The first and fundamental layer remains information technology. This infrastructure layer can be represented as a public infrastructure supporting a corporate infrastructure that supports business units and corporate applications.

At the IT infrastructure level, IT services are produced by a mix of soft dimensions, illustrating the quality of IT management and the IT-strategy partnership and alignment, and the hard dimensions of computers and networks. The production of IT quality services requires a high level of IT capital expenditures generating recurring operating costs (Marchand, Davenport & Dickson, 2000). The soft dimensions are of an organisational (application development process) and human (programming skills) nature. Hard dimensions include hardware, the network, standards, storage, and the software used to operate computers and run applications. At the beginning of the 21st century, IT investments represent the largest portion of North American firms' investments. (O'Brien, 2002) These investments can be broken down into public IT infrastructure, corporate IT infrastructure, and corporate and business unit ...