Ronald Dattero

An overview of IT service management

“To the majority of computer scientists, whether in academia or industry, the term “services” is associated with Web services and service-oriented architectures. However, there is a broader story to be told of the remarkable growth of the service sector, which has come to dominate economic activity in most advanced economies over the last 50 years. ... The opportunity to innovate in services, to realize business and societal value from knowledge about service, to research, develop, and deliver new information services and business services, has never been greater.”

The five‐tier knowledge management hierarchy

Purpose – Many terms commonly used in the field of knowledge management (KM) have multiple uses and sometimes conflicting definitions because they are adapted from other research streams. Discussions of the various hierarchies of data, information, knowledge, and other related terms, although of value, are limited in providing support for KM. The purpose of this this paper is to define a new set of terminology and develop a five‐tier knowledge management hierarchy (5TKMH) that can provide guidance to managers involved in KM efforts.Design/methodology/approach – The 5TKMH is developed by extending the knowledge hierarchy to include an individual and an innovation tier.Findings – The 5TKMH includes all of the types of KM identified in the literature, provides a tool for evaluating the KM effort in a firm, identifies the relationships between knowledge sources, and provides an evolutionary path for KM efforts within the firm.Research limitations/implications – The 5TKMH has not been formally tested.Practical...

A metaphor for knowledge management: explicit islands in a tacit sea

– This paper aims to examine the current thoughts on knowledge management (KM) and to develop a metaphor to combine these thoughts in a new way that effectively conveys the different types of knowledge and ways of managing it., – The literature on the transition of data to knowledge is reviewed. A popular paradigm in KM states that data are integrated to create information and information is integrated to create knowledge. This paradigm is represented as a pyramid‐shaped hierarchy with knowledge at the top, information in the middle, and data on the bottom. Why this paradigm is a simplistic and limited view of knowledge and KM is discussed., – The “explicit islands in a tacit sea (EITS)” metaphor is explained and discussed in the context of knowledge and knowledge management (KM)., – The EITS metaphor more accurately and completely describes knowledge in the context of KM. The practical implications of this metaphor are its flexibility and transparency of the transitional actions that affect the evolution of data to knowledge., – The EITS metaphor is an evolution of the prevailing frameworks and removes the apparent limitations in earlier frameworks. The paper provides a paradigm shift in the discussion of KM.

Programming languages and gender

Comparing differences and similarities in programming language usage according to programmer gender.

The knowledge audit : Meta-Matrix analysis

Knowledge management is a method for simplifying and improving the process of sharing, distributing, creating, and understanding organizational knowledge. By conducting a knowledge audit, an organization can assess its stores of knowledge and the flows of this knowledge throughout the organization. This paper introduces a new approach to modeling and evaluating the results of a knowledge audit – Meta-Matrix analysis. Meta-Matrix analysis is a fairly new mathematical approach developed to model the various network relations of an organizational system. Meta-Matrix analysis focuses on the (1) agents (employees), (2) knowledge categories, (3) resources, and (4) processes or tasks. The resulting model represents the various network relations of an organization by integrating multiple and related network matrices into a single interrelated unit. A graphical representation of the model can be employed to provide a means of visually understanding the relationships. In addition, Meta-Matrix analysis provides an extensive collection of performance measures.

Assessing Gender Differences in Software Developers Using the Human Capital Model

Previous studies have indicated that discriminatory practices exist in the Information Technology profession. In this paper, we quantify the differences in the current hourly salaries of female software developers with their male counterparts using the human capital model based on economic theory. In addition to the gender factor, the human capital model includes other control variables that may account for the salary differences such as education, experience, and specific skills, such as object-oriented programming and SQL. Our models indicate that gender is still a statistically and practically significant factor in assessing a software developers salary.

The enterprise knowledge dictionary

One of the difficulties in knowledge management is that knowledge sources are widely distributed and exist in many forms. Earls taxonomy (2001) of knowledge management systems, particularly, the Technocratic school – Systems, Cartographic, and Engineering, is described to provide a context for discussing the different types of knowledge management systems. To support these different types of knowledge sources, we describe an Enterprise Knowledge Dictionary (EKD) and the supporting n-tier architecture that allows access too many types of knowledge though a common interface. The EKD provides a knowledge portal that allows the knowledge seeker to locate and access the various types of knowledge for a domain of interest from a single source. In addition to facilitating knowledge reuse, the EKD is used for evaluation and planning of knowledge management activities within the firm. An n-tier architecture that both optimizes knowledge management implementations and minimizes the load on transaction processing systems is outlined.

A Five-Step Method to Tune Your ITSM Processes

Efficient and effective processes and knowledgeable employees separate high-performing organizations from average or low performing organizations. In this paper, we develop a five-step method to tune IT Service Management processes by focusing on the knowledge needs for each role and identifying the employee who possesses the needed knowledge. This five-step method employs a Dynamic Network Analysis (DNA) model that includes three classes, Persons, Roles, and Knowledge, and four important relationships between and within these classes.

IT service management: academic programs face the issues of globalization

This panel will discuss the importance of IT Service Management (ITSM) to business-school IT and MIS curricula. The goals of the panel are to provide both a business and a philosophical basis for including IT Service Management offerings in business school IT educational programs, provide a forum for questions, and begin to educate attendees of the need to include ITSM offerings in their programs. The panel will define service management, discuss how ITSM works with IT management and operations management, discuss how to integrate systems development and service management, and describe industry needs and how business school education can address those needs. The group will engage the audience in discussing ITSM educational programs.

The Compensation Benefit of ITIL® Skills and Certifications

Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) is a quality management approach for managing IT services that meet business needs. The most broadly accepted ITSM framework is ITIL® (Mann, 2012) and its adoption by organizations across the globe has grown over the past decade. A study conducted by Forrester and itSMF (2013) found that IT service providers that employ ITIL® enjoy better service quality and higher operational productivity as well as cost savings. Therefore, IT professionals with ITIL® knowledge and skills are likely valuable to organizations and earn a higher wage than their peers. This paper investigates whether or not there are salary benefits for IT professionals that possess ITIL® knowledge and skill and what are the estimated benefits, if any. Using a human capital model and employing data from an on-line survey of a large set of IT professionals (16,632 responses) conducted at the end of 2013 this benefit is confirmed and quantified.