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Our Daily News Business Columns

Appearing every Tuesday in the Business section of the Daily News,

contributed by faculty of the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Northridge

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COBAE Advisory Board

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College of Business and Economics

Wayne Smith

Wayne Smith

Wayne Smith is a Lecturer in the Department of Management at California State University, Northridge. Wayne earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Business and Economics from California State University, Northridge and his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University. He has worked and consulted in a variety of private and public sector organizations.

GRADUATE STUDENTS INSIST ON RELEVANCE

I’ve taught in several academic disciplines; however, the preponderance of both my professional career and academic research has been in the areas of management information systems (MIS) and information technology (IT). And although I generally teach at the undergraduate level, I occasionally teach at the graduate level.

MBA students are a demanding lot, and rightly so. These students insist on rigorous material that can be applied to their current and future careers with impact and alacrity. With respect to MIS/IT specifically, MBA students want to know precisely what they must know and do to understand complex systems and technology issues, capture strategic value, and minimize potential losses. In sum, I work with MBA students differently than I do with undergraduates.

Typically, I start with a respected article, usually one aimed at executives, weave back through relevant theory, models, and frameworks, and finally return back to the thesis of the original article. Along the way, the MBA students engage in a vibrant classroom discussion of the assumptions and implications of the article, especially as the principles and associated evidence might apply to their own organizations in the region.

One of the most useful articles in this genre is a discussion of the persistent role of the general manager with respect to information technology in an organization. In November 2002, Jeanne Ross and Peter Weill published an article in Harvard Business Review entitled “Six Decisions Your IT People Shouldn’t Make.”

Ross and Weill argue that general managers, not IT managers alone, need to be highly involved in six major decisions of enterprise information technology. Those six decisions are:

• How much should we spend on IT?

• Which business processes should receive our IT dollars?

• Which IT capabilities need to be companywide?

• How good do our IT services really need to be?

• What security and privacy risks will we accept?

• Whom do we blame if an IT initiative fails?

Do your firm’s managers entertain insightful discussions concerning these six questions, broadly defined? Further, do you have formal processes to approach and address each decision?