I really got into this article.  It has a lot of things going for it, including the authors letting us know up front what kind of article we were dealing with:  exploratory, interpretive case study research.  No guessing here!

Suzanne Pawlowski of LSU and Daniel Robey of Georgia State went into a company they call ManDisCo to investigate the phenomenon of knowledge brokering by IT professionals.  They conduct interviews among the IT management, primarily.  There are 23 interviewees (contributors) of which only 4 are “front line troops”.  The grunts are never quoted in the case review, either.  It’s only Managers, Sr. Managers, Directors, and VPs.  The problem I have with that is the skewdness of the perspective that the investigators are receiving.  Let’s face it, upper management folks are pretty political.  Otherwise, they don’t last very long in their position.  I’m sure that since they knew the information from the interviews was going to become public knowledge, they wanted to ensure that their company and their job functions were presented in the best light.  It’s also amusing that the last question in the interview guide is asking the interviewee for other people in the organization the should be interviewed.  

Another reason the responses of the contributors is suspect is because early on in the study, it is reported that IT people become business people in order to perform their jobs.  This is a very idealized state, if it really occurs at ManDisCo.  From the early days of Yourdon and DeMarco’s analysis and design methodologies, IT people have been encouraged to participate in the day to day activities of their end users.  However, two things have often prevented this:  IT people don’t like business processes and business people don’t understand IT people very well (Moss, 1984).  The description of the Environmental Information System is more typical.  You get managers who depend on one system (Boundary Object) for their departments and they can not communicate, and in some cases, they will not communicate.  

I also find it difficult to believe that IT professionals are the source of knowledge for business rules for the rest of the enterprise.  The authors state that knowledge transfer of business rules and processes emanates from IT because the turnover rate in the business is so high.  It has also been my experience that business workers are more prone to remain in their jobs than IT folks.  IT turnover has been notorious since the 80s (that I know of) for programmers, analysts, and even managers leaving for greener pastures on a moment’s notice.  I believe that the longevity of an IT staffer’s employment was a little over 2 years up until very recently.  Contrast this with business people that stay in their jobs five, ten, or twenty years at a time.  

Other than the above stuff to pick at, I did find the study interesting.  Although, as I said, I would prefer to concentrate on the “worm’s eye view” as opposed to the Ivory Tower of upper management.