Dear Langa, I think ITM is a multidisciplinary as it constitutes of both IT and Management fields. Thus, I strongly advice to read through the following book:

Strategic Management of Information Systems, Pearlson, K., and Saunders, C. 2013, 5th Edition, John Wiley & Sons.

In addition, some of the implications could be seen as creating a hybrid manager who knows and understand how to exploit/explore/align IT strategies with Business strategies like the ones proposed by Porter. Also, it could create a knowledge management officer (KMO) who are the best if they come from the ITM side.

Yours,

Dear Ra'ed,

I totally agree with your assertion and would also like to confirm that the book you refer is actually prescribed for Honours level at my current institution of research i.e. University of Johannesburg.

However as I am busy navigating various research papers and journals I'm overwhelmed by little research efforts placed on trying to decrypt the interdisciplinary nature of this monster field. I find that coarse-grained public opinion is driving a lot of changes in IT whilst the academic world is lagging behind somewhat.

I think the IT Governance Institute, Office of Government Commerce and The IT Management Forum are shaping the business IT outlook without thoroughly investigating inter-relatedness in various IT Management disciplines. There's a myriad of varying opinions on the subject...

Please excuse the fact that I'm all over the place the main thing is that my research speaks directly to how one can couple both Cobit and ITIL for effective IT Strategy leadership and I would like to stir-up a debate around this.

Your view is appreciated...

Kind regards,

Mthandeni kaDumisani Langa

Dear Santi,

The question is specific to IT Management of which IT Service Management and IT Governance are seen to be some of its constructs; as you correctly mentioned that related standards are not limited to ITIL and Cobit.

IT Management in my opinion is a broad church dealing with multiple dynamic sub-fields hence 'vagueness' of the question. Let's unpack IT Management a little: IT Management is an approach to effectively manage corporate IT assets including technology, IT-business relationships and human assets i.e. effective and efficient management of all corporate information assets (Rusu, 2014); hence IT Management encompasses various underlying elements like business alignment with IT (Seigorroth, 2011); IT Governance, IT Service Management (Gartner, 2008; IDRBT, 2014) as well as contemporary statutory compliance requirements (The Institute of Cost Accountants of India, 2013).

The preceding definition was formulated after consulting literature around various aspects of IT Management as I choose to refer to them. The concept of governance in IT seem to have been imported from accounting related standards (but this is very subjective and should not be treated as gospel truth). I wanted to focus on IT Management without compromising its multidisciplinary nature however this must then be narrowed to just two IT best practices (strictly because of their global footprint and their particular use in South African organisations in both public and private sectors) within ITSM and ITG being ITIL and Cobit respectively.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that academic research is unfortunately lagging behind when it comes to appreciating the interrelatedness of various IT Management constructs - something observed in preliminary literature review - I hope this picture changes as my engagement of the ITM subject matures.

The Internet, because of its pervasiveness, is shaping a number of opinions around IT hence ITM as a field. Please accept my apologies for not including a ref section for in-text referenced articles. You can advise if you require full references so you can go through them at your leisure.

Kind regards,

Mthandeni kaDumisani Langa

Here's an opinion article on ISG which is a subset of Corporate and Information Technology Governance.

This should somewhat clarify why I think the academic world appreciates the multidisciplinary nature of Information Technology Management however doesn't necessarily invest a lot of effort in untangling this monster hence my interest.

I believe, in the information-age and digital evolution, vision and corporate prosperity lie in full appreciation of ITM's multidisciplinary/ interdisciplinary hence my argument. I do hope it facilitates robust discussions around the exciting field of ITM in general.

Hello Mthandeni,

in case you are still navigating through the research world, I can only refer to the many approaches trying to explain the difficulties of all IT-realted fields in the modern world;

I think that there is concensus, that we, indeed, have a multidisciplinary field. Checkland, Feiler et al., Goguen all had very early thoughts on this - mentioning, that we do NOT have technical systems - but rather socio-technical ones. Combining social sciences (applied at many stages) and technical systems - which then of course gain an enormous importance and high complexity.

Recent publications are just the result of these ideas, e.g. when claiming that soft skills matter (Azim et al. 2010).

Hi Yannick,

What you are mentioning is enlightening to say the least. The excitement might somewhat be due to the fact that I completely buy into Feiler et al. and Azim et al concepts. My main challenge is getting literature deliberating on what I believe in detail - it all comes in drips and drops.

I would be very interested in reading more concerning their train of thought. Do you have titles of their Journals so I can peruse? I find the concept of socio-technical systems quite intriguing.

Please guide accordingly and thank you very much for taking time to submit your refreshing views.

Kind regards,

Mthandeni kaDumisani Langa

Hello Mthandeni,

I can not refer to specifiy journals, though here is a list of "basic" literature, what you might could use for a research based on quotations of these pieces of work. I suggest Google Scholar and throwing in some of your detailled ideas...

As you will see all these sources are primarily quite "old" - just emphasizes, that the view on IT as multidisciplinary is not new and possibly a common/accepted opinion.

Sorry for the "strange" format of sources, I just extracted them from some older slides!

Since I do not know what your thoughts are in detail, I'll just provide you a list of sources I assume to be helpful and covering a broad range of ideas, all around the issued request by you.

If you need more support, feel free to contact me via email!

N.Luhmann; Einführung in die Systemtheorie (don't know whether there is an english version - but as far I am aware, this source is broadly cited even by english authors)

Andelfinger, U. (2002): On the Intertwining of Social and Technical Factors in Software Development Projects. In: (Dittrich, Floyd & Klischewski2002), 185-203.

Kieser, Alfred (1999): Organisationstheorien, 1999. (same comment as on the first source)

Checkland, Peter (1999): Systems Thinking, Systems Practice.

Giddens, A. (1984) : The Constitution of Society.

Goguen, Joseph A. (1982) : The Dry and theWet.

Orlikoswki, W.J. (1991): Information Technology and the Structuring of Organizations, in Information Systems Research.

Kraut, R. E.; Fish, R. S.; Root, R.W.; Chalfonte, B. L. (1990): Informal Communication in Organizations: Form, Function, and Technology.

Whitworth, B. & de Moor, Aldo (2009): Administrative Behavior: Socio-Technical Design and social Networking Systems

Dahlbom, B. ; Mathiassen, L. (1995): Computers in Context. The Philosophy and Practice of Systems Design. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc.

Floyd, C. (1992): Human Questions in Computer Science. In: (Floyd et al 1992), 15-27.

And of course Mintzberg might even give some hints.

Newer and more specific work include:

Aasi et al. (2014), Almeida et al. (2013), Hasan (2007), Héroux and Fortin (2014), Iden and Eikebrokk (2013), Kearns and Sabherwal (2007), Othman and Chan (2013).

You might should even look into De Haes/Van Grembergens various publications, which deal with business/IT alignment and IT Governance/Enterprise Governance of IT - here the "human" factor is often influencing the dependencies and relationships between business and IT.

Hi Yannick,

This is super, thank you very much.

Kind regards,

Mthandeni kaDumisani Langa

Is it plausible to look at IT Management as a multidisciplinary field?

Yes it is plausible to look at IT Management as a multidisciplinary field - reason being IT Management itself is gradually being run as a business / profit center that have their own ecosystem, input, process, output as well as to accountable for its own costs & revenues.  Evidence of IT Management as a multidisciplinary field includes the following processes which can be extracted from ITIL v3 / 2011:

The answer could be much simpler. If IT Management is a combination of 'IT' and 'management', then the question answers itself.

If 'management' is considered multidisciplianry, then yes, if not, then not. Most people would define 'management' as very multidisciplinary ;-)

Looking at your initial question, and defining the components, it seems that you treat 'IT' as information provisioning services instead of information technology. I suggest you first define your scope and then rephrase the question.

Dear Han Ping Fung,

ITIL does not describe processes. As it says at page 1, it describes practices. And practices are the results of processes, people, and technology. Fot that simple reason, something like Security Management can never be described as a process.

This is a very (!!) common mistake, but luckily it can be solved. If you look for the management system that should be installed 'under' ITIL, you will be able to see a system that could generate all ITIL's practices. That's what we call a management system, which on it's turn should preferably be based upon a management method.

Unfortunately, there are still very few management methods available. Or perhaps that's not so much of a wonder, as they all should probably converge around widely accepted management principles :-).

With all due respect, this would not help a practitioner at all. Perhaps scientists (and I've formally played that role for decade) should focus more on demystifying their field and reducing complexity, instead of loosing themselves in abstraction.

IT is simply one of the facility domains that support primary business activities. Check EN15221 for a reference. Managing IT can be performed at various maturity levels, determining the goals of the management. Check the 1996 KPMG Maturity Model that still says it all: the ultimate maturity is business alignment, sharing responsibilities for the added value.

Managing IT therefor is simply a matter of good management applied to the domain of information provisioning. No magic, no mystery.

http://www.itwnet.com/frameworks/kpmg-maturity-model-it-service-organizations

http://www.inform-it.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/SAME-the-Strategic-Alignment-Model-Enhanced-20151015.pdf

http://www.inform-it.org/the-wrong-end-of-the-stick-rules-vs-principles/

http://www.bifm.org.uk/bifm/knowledge/research/Standard

Dear Jan van Bon,

I completely understand where you're coming from. However, I believe the wonders and adventures of exciting research are incumbent in abstraction.

Your own description of IT Management is, in my opinion, within reach of the supposedly abstract description introduced in my preceding debate, perhaps with a more practical perspective.

My research share's similar sentiments and introduces a conceptual model upon which IT management can be appreciated in its holistic context - this is still open for debate, hence the thought to take this further.

This is what makes research exciting and capable of altering the world for better. You are spot-on and I am happy to read through your references for more context.