Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Developing a Model for Assessing IT Competency of
Managers
Mohammad Abooyee Ardakan 1 , Hamed Majidi Zolbanin 2 and Ali Khaleghi 3
1, 2
University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3
University of Grenoble, Grenoble, France
Abooyee@ut.ac.ir
hmajidiz@ut.ac.ir
Ali.Khaleghi@upmf-grenoble.fr
Abstract: In today's rapidly changing environment, increased focus on customer and quick response to problems
and opportunities has made the manager a vital resource in guiding and directing employees to success. So,
within an organizational context, it appears crucial to develop competent managers who can be relied on to
transform their organizations accordingly. In this regard, the competency approach marks a new development
and the importance given to competencies in the organizational context is continually increasing. ith the
widespread use of information technology (IT) in recent decades, management scholars began to examine its
implications on organizations and management. Several of the researchers in this field focused on the
identification of managerial IT competencies. In this paper, we want to explore those skills that managers, in the
new world of information and communication technologies, must possess in order to cope with the difficulties of
their roles.
Keywords: competency, IT competency, management competencies, competency assessment
1. Introduction
With the advent of information technology (IT) in 1980s and its widespread use in businesses,
especially in 1990s, the concept of business has dramatically changed. The extent of these
transformations has been so huge that no company can overlook including IT in its business strategy.
However, this context is of no exception in that the rate of its developments, like other technologyintensive
areas, is much faster than organizations’ adaptability to such changes. As a result, in many
organizations IT has often failed to meet its full potential (Stuart et al. 2009).
Part of this failure in exploiting the full range of IT capabilities is rooted in the paucity of organizations’
top management support. Researchers and institutions have noted lack of executive support as one
of the main difficulties in managing IT projects (Jenster and Hussy 2005). Unfamiliarity with IT and a
shallow insight into its role in today’s businesses – if not the most important- is one of the important
reasons of top managers’ negligence to this technology. The more knowledgeable managers become
about IT, the more they will champion it within their enterprise (Bassellier et al. 2003).
Moreover, leadership behaviors of senior management play an important role in determining the
success or failure of an IT implementation (Neufeld et al. 2007). Hence, for any organization to benefit
from the various and vast capabilities of IT, it is a necessity to enhance IT competency of its business
managers (Bassellier et al. 2003).
The goal of this paper is to develop a model to assess the IT competency of business managers. It
will guide us through whether or not to add new dimensions to the Bassellier’s model (Figure 2) for IT
competency of managers. This dimension(s) mainly addresses the less stressed skill of IT managers
in having a conceptual view on their working environment.
2. The concept of competency
The term competency has no widely accepted single definition (Strebler et al. 1997; Jubb and
Rowbotham 1997). Researchers and scholars have evolved several meanings for the term which are
mainly adapted to their own fields. The term was first introduced to the field of management through
the work of Boyatzis (1982). He defined a competency as:
Characteristics that are causally related to effective and / or superior performance in a
job. This means that there is evidence that indicates that possession of the
characteristics precedes and leads to effective and / or superior performance on the job
(Thompson et al. 1996).
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