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100 Part One Organizations, Management, and the Networked Enterprise

occupations, MIS is ranked 15th in terms of salaries. While all IS occupations
show above-average growth, the fastest growing occupations are computer
support specialists (30%), systems analysts (21%), software engineers and
programmers (20%), and information systems managers (17%) (Bureau of
Labor Statistics, 2012). With businesses and government agencies increasingly
relying on the Internet for computing and communication resources, system
and network security management positions are especially in demand. See
the Learning Track for this chapter titled “Occupational and Career Outlook
for Information Systems Majors 2012–2018” for more details on IS job
opportunities.

ORGANIZING THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS FUNCTION
There are many types of business firms, and there are many ways in which
the IT function is organized within the firm. A very small company will not
have a formal information systems group. It might have one employee who
is responsible for keeping its networks and applications running, or it might
use consultants for these services. Larger companies will have a separate
information systems department, which may be organized along several
different lines, depending on the nature and interests of the firm. Our Learning
Track describes alternative ways of organizing the information systems function
within the business.
The question of how the information systems department should be organized
is part of the larger issue of IT governance. IT governance includes the strat-
egy and policies for using information technology within an organization. It
specifies the decision rights and framework for accountability to ensure that
the use of information technology supports the organization’s strategies and
objectives. How much should the information systems function be centralized?
What decisions must be made to ensure effective management and use of infor-
mation technology, including the return on IT investments? Who should make
these decisions? How will these decisions be made and monitored? Firms with
superior IT governance will have clearly thought out the answers (Weill and
Ross, 2004).

LEARNING TRACK MODULES

The following Learning Tracks provide content relevant to topics covered in
this chapter:
1. Systems from a Functional Perspective
2. IT Enables Collaboration and Teamwork
3. Challenges of Using Business Information Systems
4. Organizing the Information Systems Function
5. Occupational and Career Outlook for Information Systems Majors 2012–2018

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