Paul Strassman's contributions to organizational politics and governance

Politics of Information Management

The art of information management is widely known as the tactic of policy makers guiding the policy followers into doing so. Therein comes the practice of politics and it is known that politics portends power; consequently understanding power and its application to the art of information management is both appropriate and timely. Organizations now have been proliferated by computers to an extent that they control the entire operations and relationship between suppliers and customers in a business transaction. They also shape how the public institutions deal and communicate with individuals and private organizations (Strassman Inc., 1997).

In the process of communication and outside relations, a CIO is frequently found among the most visible executive managers in an organization or corporation. One of the reasons for this frequent appearance in public of the CIO as compared to the other managers is due to the fact that the IT encapsulates all the other sectors and departments according to Donovan, E. (2007). He goes on to point out that the other reason is purely since lots of department managers tend to influence the operations of the IT department to suite or appear to be suiting their own ambitions and visions. These two will arouse the urge of being a good political administrator in as much as they work near technology.

As Strassmann P., (2005) puts it, the CIO should be in control of the expenditure, oversee growth of the staff and department, approves/discontinues projects, reports directly to the CEO as his boss and generally are the "key movers in delivering the 'transformational' changes…" among many other central duties in an organization.

Though it might have been driven by urge to maintain good relation with other stakeholders, the CIO of Overstock.com once made a public confession in writing that was a classical error of his career. He made it clear that his department and the organization at large were having updates problems and general IT failures and he not only confessed but also took responsibility for the same.

It was not right for him to act as he did at for the cons of such an act far outweighed the pros within public domain. Finney R., (2006) says that most people would like to "commit to a purpose, a goal, a vision that is bigger than themselves, big enough to make them stretch and grow until they assume personal responsibility for achieving it." But paradoxically in the case of the Overstock.com the CIO did the opposite and took public responsibility for the failure of it.

A good professional CIO should be able to determine the working environment and then be in cognizant of the unwritten rules and play by them. Many CIOs like the case in hand keep working towards the greater good tilt het lose sight and touch of the organizational information politics (Finney, R., 2006). This was the other error that he overlooked while making his confession.

The CIO in our case also failed to realize that he should have worked from the business client's perspective as Finney, R. (2006) recommends. Before one moves to another level of politics of information, he should identify the existing political state and play by the rules, written or otherwise before changing the game. This way he could have known that making such confessions and publicly so would be detrimental to the organization's integrity.

Schuman, E., (2005) postulates that the clients, partners or general public who don't have the technical orientation would not like to hear unvarnished truth, especially when it comes to technology projects. All they want to know is that their problems are being sorted out and someone responsible is handling their problems. The CIO of Overstock.com did directly the opposite of it all; he tried to lay bare technical issue to a non-technical audience out there and even confessed that his department and organization was going don, meaning he was not responsible enough and incapable of salvaging the situation. Based on this many lost confidence in the organization as a whole.

Though it is generally said and agreed that CIOs tend to take the honest path when it comes to faults I would suggest to the Overstock.com that it would be best to control these tendencies of honesty and volunteering information on the cause and source of problems within and organization. As Schuman says to all those in authority like the CIOs, "Honesty is a powerful concept. Use it only as a last resort"