The Impact of Rapid Change in Technology on the Information Systems Organization

Information technology is changing today at a rapid pace. Emerging technologies include not only new hardware, software, and data communications for user applications but also planning and development tools for IS professionals. In fact, the rate of IT change appears to be increasing dramatically. New products seem to surface with greater alacrity than ever before in the history of computing. Research has suggested that this swift change is causing difficulties for today\u27s IS organization. IS professionals on a lengthy development project can witness the emergence of dramatic, new, useful ITs and the passing of others. Capitalizing on the new opportunities while avoiding the risks of the fads can pose a complex challenge to the IS organization. Given this state of affairs, research is needed to help IS managers understand, plan, and control the impact of new IT. To advance such study, this paper describes research-in-progress that attempts to answer the following two questions: In what ways is the rapid change in IT affecting the IS organization? How are IS organizations dealing with problems that arise from this change