IS Human Capital: Assessing Gaps to Strengthen Skill and Competency Sourcing
Past research has mainly focused on defining information systems (IS) skills and competencies
at the industry or
global level; it has offered little guidance on best practices for managing IS at
the organization level. And yet, a
resource-based view indicates that failure to properly manage skills and competencies
could lead to suboptimal
outcomes such as a loss of IS process knowledge and innovation, an inability to adequately
evaluate vendor
performance, and a lack of critical skills and competencies needed to meet future
demands. In this paper, we
examine how one government agency managed its systems for testing personnel. We describe
the need for a
process to assess IS skills and competencies in order to analyze the gaps and ensure
they are filled. A concrete
understanding of existing gaps guides sourcing of skills and competencies through
hiring, training, internal transfers, and work allocation. This paper presents an
effective methodology for this purpose.