Transitioning Corporate IT Management into Innovation Excellence: Theoretical & Pragmatic Perspectives
(Free Admission)

by
Professor Dr. Jasbir Dhaliwal
Chairman of the MIS Department, University of Memphis, U.S.A.

Venue
Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST)
Founders Hall
2nd Floor, Block C, Kelana Square
17 Jalan SS 7/26, Kelana Jaya
47301 Petaling Jaya

Date
Thursday, 3 January 2008

Time
10.00 am – 12.30 pm

Attire
Office / Smart Casual

Kindly R.S.V.P by 2nd January 2008 to En. Rizal by calling 03-7880 1777 (ext 115) or fax to 03-7880 1762

Ever since Carr's 2003 article Harvard Business Review that argued that "IT does not matter", an intense debate has raged about the need for chief technology officers (CTO) to pursue a renewed strategic balance between cost-cutting and innovation imperatives. A key result of this has been that in many organizations, CEOs are challenging their CTOs to make their corporate technology units more innovative. However, CTOs have struggled with this challenge because "IT unit innovation" has been hard to define and measure precisely enough to facilitate scientific management based on the "measure and manage" principle. This presentation describes a new theoretical framework that explicitly identifies the pertinent components of IT unit innovation including new business venturing, innovativeness, self-renewal and pro-activeness. Specific measurements for these components are then identified that can be used by CTOs to understand, track and grow the level of innovation in their corporate technology units. Case study examples are provided of how these innovation measures are now being used by large business organizations to evaluate and boost the innovation performance of CTOs and corporate technology units as the basis for innovation service level guarantees in outsourcing agreements, for decision making purposes in selecting outsourcing vendors; and for comparative purposes when technology units are being evaluated both within and across organizational, industry and regional settings. On-going research that attempts to develop an "innovation scorecard" for technology organizations is also presented.

Dr. Jasbir Dhaliwal is Professor and Chair of Management Information Systems at the University of Memphis. He also directs the Systems Testing Excellence Program at the university's FedEx Institute of Technology which represents the largest international group of research faculty working to advance the science of testing. Born in the town of Taiping in Malaysia, he first qualified an accountant with the Bachelor of Accounting (Honours) degree from the University of Malaya. He subsequently went on to complete the MBA and PhD (Management Information Systems/Artificial Intelligence) degrees from the University of British Columbia in Canada.

His current research focus is on systems validation and verification methods; IT governance and innovation within large corporate IT units. His research has appeared in scholarly journals such as Information Systems Research, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Journal of Organizational Computing & Electronic Commerce, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Knowledge Acquisition, Education & Information Technologies, Information & Management as well as in the proceedings of numerous international research conferences. He has also co-authored a book on E-Business Innovation that is published by Prentice-Hall/Pearson Education and served as Program Chair of the Pacific Asian Conference on Information Systems in 1995.

His diverse academic leadership experience includes: founding the first Canadian research-based incubation center for electronic commerce at the Technical University of British Columbia (now Simon Fraser University); serving as Deputy Director of the Centre for Management of Technology at the National University of Singapore; directing a graduate program in information management at the Norwegian School of Management in Oslo; and serving as Chair of the Department of Information Systems at Northern Kentucky University where he launched an offering of the university's Master of Science in Information Systems program in Moscow, Russia. He is also active internationally as an executive trainer and technology management advisor and has completed projects for many organizations including FedEx, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Anderson Consulting, Ericsson Telecommunications, Sapura Advanced Systems, IBM Asia Pacific, Kontena Nasional, Alcatel Bell Shanghai, McDonnell-Dettwiler Canada, Asia Pacific Institute for Information Technology, and the ASEAN-European Union Management Center.

His other interests focus primarily on asian immigrant narratives, nurturing global mindsets, and investing in new technology ventures.