The Demand for Information Technology Knowledge and Skills: An Exploratory Investigation

Organizations are always in search of appropriate information technology knowledge and skills to carry out normal business operations. Such demand is directly impacted by the overall economic conditions. During stressful economic times, managers, facing tough budgetary pressure, are farced to examine more thoroughly what knowledge and skills are needed to survive. This paper investigates the desired information technology knowledge and skills that employers are searching for in these turbulent times. We examine the content ofjob advertisements for information technology professionals placed in an online job placement website over a 2 year period, 2001-2002

Information Technology Wages and the Value of Certifications: A Human Capital Perspective

Although the value of Information Technology (IT) certifications has been widely debated in the IT industry, academia has largely ignored the issue. This study intends to bridge such a gap. Anchored on human capital theory and previous literature, we build a comprehensive model to estimate the value of various IT certifications in terms of their contributions to IT professionals\u27 wages. We estimate our model using third-party survey data. The three main findings from the study are: 1) IT certifications are valuable in general; 2) there is a substitution effect between IT certifications and education and between IT certifications and experience; and 3) the value of IT certifications are job and industry specific. In addition, we estimate wage premiums of various IT certifications in the study. From these findings, we draw managerial implications for current and future IT professionals, IT managers, and human resource managers

The Human Capital Value of OOP

If object-oriented programmers are more productive than other programmers, they should be paid more, assuming that wages are determined based on the value of a worker\u27s marginal productivity. The human capital model is used to assess the current salary premiums of programmers who know object-oriented programming (OOP). While the human capital model employed quantifies this premium, it also controls for the effects of different amounts of technical experience and different levels of education (highest attained degree) that the programmers possess. Using two samples, the incremental value of OOP skills is shown to be about the same over the two different time periods (2000/2001 and 2003)

Business process modelling to improve incident management process

Business process management (BPM) is an approach focused on the continuous improvement of business processes, providing for this a collection of best practices. These best practices enable the redesign of business processes to meet the desired performance. IT service management (ITSM) defines the management of IT operations as a service. There are several ITSM frameworks available, consisting in best practices that propose standardizing these pro- cesses for the respective operations. By adopting these frameworks, organisations can align IT with their business objectives. Therefore, the objective of this research is to understand how BPM can be used to improve of ITSM processes. An exploratory case study in a multinational company based in Lisbon, Portugal, is conducted for the improvement of the time performance of an inci- dent management process. Data were gained through documentation, archival records, interviews and focus groups with a team involved in IT support service. So far, the as-is process was elicited, and respective incongruences clarified. During the next months the authors intend to identify the main problems and simulate the appropriate BPM heuristics to understand the impact in the busi- ness organisation.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Differential MMSE: new adaptive algorithms for equalization, interference suppression, and beamforming

This paper provides a reformulation of the linear Minimum Mean Squared Error (MMSE) criterion so that it applies to systems in which the quantity to be tracked is the ratio of the data appearing in two successive observations. The resulting differential MMSE criterion leads to a number of novel algorithms for adaptive implementation of the MMSE receiver. Applications include the following: (a) equalization for single user systems in fast fading (b) adaptive multiuser detection, or interference suppression, for direct sequence CDMA systems employing short spreading sequences in fast fading; (c) blind beamforming using a receive antenna array for direct sequence CDMA systems with long spreading sequences

Multi-target tracking using hybrid particle filtering

We address the problem of multi-target tracking based on sequential Monte Carlo filtering for a. visual access control application. Sequential Monte Carlo methods are very suitable for approximating posterior distributions for single target tracking applications. However, tracking multiple targets is more difficult and critically depends on the ability to represent all statistically significant modes with a sufficient number of samples. Even when tracking a. single target, controlling the effective sample size of the particle set only crudely estimates how well it approximates the posterior target distribution. In contrast, previous work demonstrates that using a Kalman filter control loop, which monitors the performance of the particle filter, can dramatically improve posterior distribution approximation in a dynamic fashion. This paper extends this principle to multi-target tracking by introducing a technique called mode stratification. In addition, a method to automatically augment and delete the number of modes using local relative entropy measures is introduced. Experiments applying the proposed technique for visual head tracking in an access control application illustrate the effectiveness of the method

Estimating the Value of Java and C++ Skills

C++ and Java are popular programming languages in university programs. Job postings show that Java and C++ are much in demand technical skills. In this paper, the human capital model was fitted to estimate the salary benefits of knowing C++ and Java. The analysis is based on survey data for 22,488 full-time information systems professionals. Based on the results for this model, we conclude that knowledge of Java produces a much greater salary increase than does C++. Of course, knowledge of both languages is particularly desirable because, as expected, knowledge of both languages results in the largest salary

The Impacts Of Job Characteristics On Is Employee Satisfaction: A Comparison Between Permanent And Temporary Employees

The use of temporary employees in the information systems field continues at a high rate. In order to maintain a quality work environment, an organization must effectively manage both the temporary and permanent work force. A model of satisfaction is constructed based on previous literature and focus groups in three organization that proposes links to satisfaction from the job characteristics of dependence, autonomy, task interdependence, and management support. A survey of employees in public sector and non-profit organizations revealed that both permanent and temporary employees related management support to satisfaction, temporary employees related task interdependence to satisfaction, and permanent employees related job involvement to satisfaction. Follow-up interviews revealed satisfaction of the permanent employees to be negatively impacted by perceived workload imbalances