Start Date
11-12-2016 12:00 AM
Description
A fundamental aspect of IT-Business alignment rests on good communication between business managers and IT personnel. Managers need to obtain useful technical information to support strategic IT decisions and must communicate with IT workers to do so. However, we argue that managers’ preconceived perspectives of IT experts (as “nerds”) can have an effect on communication between managers and IT workers. This research examines business-IT communication between managers and IT workers. The nerd effect causes managers to surrender control over a business-IT communication to an individual perceived as a nerd. Under these circumstances, the traditionally positive relationship between control over a communication and the success of that communication is inverted. Results from a quasi-experiment provide evidence that the nerd effect has the power to affect and possibly undermine the communication upon which business-IT strategic alignment relies.
Recommended Citation
Craig, Kevin and Grover, Varun, "The Nerd Effect: Communication and Managerial Self-Image" (2016). ICIS 2016 Proceedings. 6.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/HumanBehavior/Presentations/6
The Nerd Effect: Communication and Managerial Self-Image
A fundamental aspect of IT-Business alignment rests on good communication between business managers and IT personnel. Managers need to obtain useful technical information to support strategic IT decisions and must communicate with IT workers to do so. However, we argue that managers’ preconceived perspectives of IT experts (as “nerds”) can have an effect on communication between managers and IT workers. This research examines business-IT communication between managers and IT workers. The nerd effect causes managers to surrender control over a business-IT communication to an individual perceived as a nerd. Under these circumstances, the traditionally positive relationship between control over a communication and the success of that communication is inverted. Results from a quasi-experiment provide evidence that the nerd effect has the power to affect and possibly undermine the communication upon which business-IT strategic alignment relies.