Article Abstract

	Title:	Understanding the relationship between business and IT groups: a personal construct theory approach
	Author:	Senaka Fernando, Mark Lycett, Sergio De Cesare
	Address:	School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UK. ' School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UK. ' School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, UK
	Journal:	International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations 2006 - Vol. 3, No.4  pp. 438 - 449
	Abstract:	The relationship between business and Information Technology (IT) groups in organisations has consistently ranked as an important concern among business and IT managers. As a result, several researchers have investigated the means of improving the business/IT relationship. They focus on behaviours of business and IT groups and attempt to develop change management programmes as a vehicle for obtaining desired behaviours from business and IT groups in order to improve the 'relationship'. However, research shows that such attempts have a low success rate in attaining an effective 'relationship'. This paper argues that the reason for this is that most researchers tend to focus on behaviours of people without an in-depth understanding of their cognition, which influences those behaviours. Consequently, the paper proposes a cognitive approach and explores the application of Personal Construct Theory (PCT) to understand the 'relationship' and means to improve it.
	Keywords:	business-IT relationship; information technology; cognition; PCT; elaboration; resistance; change management; group behaviour; personal construct theory; networking; virtual organisations; IT groups; business-IT groups.
	DOI:	10.1504/IJNVO.2006.011871
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