Graham Kenneth Winley

NATIONAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY POLICY IN THAILAND: A COMPARISON AMONG ORGANIZATIONAL SECTORS

This study was motivated by the challenges confronting the developing Southeast Asian nation of Thailand in realizing national policy objectives aimed at creating a knowledge‐based society. The study determines and compares the development plans of 72 medium to large sized organizations representing 7 organizational sectors in terms of the relative and changing importance assigned to a range of technologies, professional activities, and IT knowledge/skills and assesses the alignment of these development plans with national policy objectives.

Information technologies in Thailand: an organisational perspective

This exploratory study aims to determine the technologies, IT professional activities, areas of IT knowledge/skills and related concerns, at present and within the next five years, which are important to private and public organisations operating in the Southeast Asian nation of Thailand. The study was motivated by the challenges confronting a developing nation in realising national IT policy objectives aimed at creating a knowledge-based society in the wake of a serious economic downturn in the late 1990s. Conclusions drawn from the analysis of responses to a questionnaire highlight the problems and future intentions for the use of information and communication technologies from the perspective of international and local, medium-and large-sized, organisations operating in Thailand.

The Adoption and Use of ICT in Thailand and Vietnam

This exploratory study compares the adoption and use of ICT in the developing nations of Vietnam and Thailand by examining the nature and structure of the IT profession in medium to large size organizations. A theoretical framework is used with three related components: domains of IT professional expertise; the scope of the IT professionals knowledge, skills, and experience; and specific knowledge and skills associated with the domains of professional expertise. The findings provide insights that are not found in existing reports which address ICT issues at a national rather than an organizational level. In particular, findings concerned with the first two components of the framework for both nations are compared to predictions about the adoption and use of ICT in organizations in technologically developed nations.

The Structure of the Information Technology Profession: A Comparison Among Organizational Sectors in Thailand

Predictions about changes over the period 2005 to 2010 in the nature and structure of the IT profession in organizations operating in developed nations were tested for organizations operating in eight different organizational sectors in Thailand. Data collected in 2006 and 2011 from organizations in Thailand was used to test the predictions and to identify similarities and differences among the sectors with respect to the importance of specific knowledge and skills associated with each part of the predicted structure. The findings provide theoretical and practical insights into the development of the nature and structure of the IT profession in Thailand over the past five years and the relative importance of IT professional skills in each organizational sector.

AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE ADOPTION AND USE OF ICT IN MYANMAR

This exploratory study investigates the adoption and use of information and communication technologies in Myanmar by examining the nature and structure of the information technology profession. The investigation is based on a theoretical framework consisting of three components: domains of information technology professional expertise; the scope of the information technology professionals knowledge, skills and experience; and specific knowledge and skills associated with the domains of professional expertise. The findings show that specialist skills in systems development, database, network and communications are important. This paper also provides insights that are not found in current literature which investigates information technology skills in Myanmar.

ICT Curricular and the Requirements of Organizations in Thailand

The study compared ICT professional requirements in organizations in Thailand with ICT bachelor degree curricular offered in universities in Thailand using a theoretical framework with three related components: domains of expertise; the scope of the professionals knowledge, skills, and experience; and specific skills associated with the domains of expertise. Data was collected by questionnaire from 166 medium to large sized organizations and 42 universities which offered in total 78 ICT related bachelor degree programs. The findings showed that, although there was a reasonable degree of alignment between the importance of skills in the organizations and the ICT curricular, the ICT programs were not addressing adequately the needs of organizations for a range of skills related to understanding organizations and their functions, ICT management activities, and especially the management of ICT physical and financial resources. On the other hand, ICT programs placed more emphasis than the organizations on skills concerned with systems development methodologies for the complete development of applications/systems, CASE tools, programming and coding, database design, technical expertise with object relational and object oriented databases, and multimedia applications. Previous studies of this kind conducted in Thailand were not found and the findings are expected to be of value and interest to those responsible for national ICT policy and especially ICT education and training.

Factors Associated with the use of Personal Internet Banking in Thailand

Based on a review of previous studies, important variables associated with the use of personal Internet Banking services are identified in this paper. Using data collected through a questionnaire, statistically significant associations among these variables are determined. The findings of the study confirm significant associations reported in previous studies and identify significant associations among an individuals work position; personal characteristics of users; the influence of peers on users; the importance of trust; and the emphasis placed by users on personal relationships with banks. Conclusions are drawn which are of practical use for those responsible for the development of personal Internet Banking services.

An Exploratory Study of Expectation in IT Skills in a Developing Nation: Vietnam

The purpose of this study is to explore expectations in information technology skills for organizations in Vietnam, a developing country in South East Asia. Previous research in Vietnam has mainly focused on information technology adoption; this study offers an insight into the demands of information technology skills in Vietnam. A theoretical framework consisting of five domains of expertise is used to examine the nature and structure of information technology profession in Vietnam. Results from the study show that there is an anticipated increase in demand for information technology professionals who possess deep skills in a broad scope of roles and experience both in information technology and other business domains. Technical skills in the technology infrastructure and services domain in combination with strong communication and problem solving qualities are highly valued by Vietnamese employers.

Personality Traits among Information Technology Officers and the Expectations of Human Resource Personnel

This study examined the importance assigned by Human Resource personnel to the personality traits of Information Technology officers. The extent to which these traits were evident among Information Technology officers was determined and compared to their level of importance among Human Resource personnel. The well-known 16 Personality Factors model was used and data was collected by questionnaire from 84 Information Technology officers working at operational levels in organizations and 64 Human Resource personnel with experience in the recruitment of Information Technology officers. For most of the traits the findings showed reasonable agreement between the level of importance of the traits according to the Human Resource personnel and the extent to which traits were evident among the Information Technology officers. However, there were differences with respect to the four traits Friendliness, Introversion, Sensitivity, and Intellect and the practical implications of these findings are discussed.

An investigation of ICT knowledge and skills in Vietnam

This study examines the present and future demands for knowledge and skills among IT professionals in organizations in Vietnam. A theoretical framework with 3 components is used: 6 domains of IT professional expertise; items representing knowledge and skills associated with the domains; and sourcing strategies that organizations may implement in order to procure basic IT knowledge and skills. The findings provide insights that are not found in existing studies of ICT in Vietnam which instead are focused on specific ICT issues and ICT development at a national level rather than at the level of organizations. In particular, findings are compared with predictions presented in the only 2 similar recent studies conducted in 2011.