City Research Online

Abstract

This thesis reports on a study of IT-mediated learning methods to improve executive understanding to harness the capabilities of new information and communications technologies for business benefits.

Part 1 describes how a distillation of existing knowledge on strategic information systems, management learning and information management led to four hypotheses centred on the enhancement of executive IT skills. This provided the foundation for a programme of action research starting in 1995 with a self-selected community of interest. The collaborative development and exploration of a range of learning materials and environments led to the emergence of a generalisable framework - the Executive Learning Ladder. The prototype was tested by measuring the outcomes of fifty executive learning events during 1997. This process identified both strengths and weaknesses in the framework which was refined and retested with new communities in 1998/9. The findings propose the conditions for successful application of the framework.

Part 2 reports on a further tranche of fieldwork to verify these findings. Validation of the hypotheses against the action learning projects in sequence reveals a dynamic shift of importance. From this a practical and generalisable approach is developed - the ‘blended method’. The paper concludes with an account of applications of the blended method to satisfy a range of audiences with different objectives. The success of these instantiations shows that IT-mediated methods accelerate executive learning in the information management domain.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > ZA Information resources > ZA4050 Electronic information resources
Departments:	Bayes Business School > Bayes Business School Doctoral Theses Bayes Business School > Management Doctoral Theses

Export

Downloads