The Impact of Environment on Building IT Technical Competency

Author

Benjamin Joseph Wierwille, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

5-1-2012

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Business Administration

First Advisor

Nelson, Kay

Abstract

Information Technology Technical Competency is critical for the optimal functioning of any organization. IT personnel need to be competent in their technical skills. Studying how IT personnel build their technical competencies is a critical but under-studied area of research. To date, very little research has been done on how to build IT Technical Competencies, and virtually none of this research begins with qualitative data or uses IT personnel as key respondents. Initially, we evoke a revealed causal map that shows four concepts in the IT Environment construct: the Technical Environment, the People Environment, the Business Environment, and the Job Environment. Our model first proposes a relationship between the IT Environment and IT Technical Competency. An original survey based on the qualitative data was developed for this study. Data was collected at four research sites: a manufacturing organization, a healthcare organization, a government organization, and an education organization. All together 101 respondent's survey answers were analyzed. We tested the proposed model of IT Technical Competency using the method of path analysis with linear regression. Our results indicated that the Technical and Business Environments are viewed as one, so we end up with a three environment concept model of IT Technical Competency. Our model achieved a R-squared value of above 0.5, meaning that the environment surrounding IT personnel, the IT Environment, is 50% related to IT Technical Competency. This is the first model to this author's knowledge that holistically looks at environment in relation to technical competency. Future research will continue look more in-depth at each of the concepts in this environment individually.