Information system

Information Systems and

Technology Education:

From the University to

the Workplace

Glenn R. Lowry

United Arab Emirates University, UAE

Rodney L. Turner

Victoria University, Australia

Hershey • New York

InformatIon scIence reference

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Information systems and technology education : from the university to the workplace / Glenn R. Lowry and Rodney L. Turner, editors.

p. cm.

Summary: "This book presents a multifaceted, global view of the human dynamics of education, supply, demand, and career development

in the information systems and technology industry. It provides a tool to meet the challenges of providing improved education and

employing an optimal supply of information systems and technology graduates in the decades to come"--Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-59904-114-8 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-59904-116-2 (ebook)

1. Information technology--Vocational guidance. 2. Information technology--Educational aspects. I. Lowry, Glenn R. II. Turner, Rodney

L.

T58.5.I528 2007

004.023--dc22

2007007278

British Cataloguing in Publication Data

A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

All work contributed to this book set is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but

not necessarily of the publisher.

Preface .................................................................................................................................................xii

Acknowledgment ..............................................................................................................................xvii

Chapter I

A Dynamic Structural Model of Education and Skills Requirements for Careers in

Information Systems: Perspectives Across Gender and Time /

Glenn R. Lowry, Rodney L. Turner, and Julie Fisher ............................................................................. 1

Chapter II

Leveraging Diversity in Information Systems and Technology Education in the

Global Workplace / Eileen M. Trauth, Haiyan Huang, Jeria L. Quesenberry, and

Allison J. Morgan.................................................................................................................................. 27

Chapter III

Critique: Information Systems Academics’ Core Competency? / Mike Metcalfe ................................ 42

Chapter IV

Enterprise Systems Software in the Business Curriculum: Aligning Curriculum with Industry

Requirements / Ravi Seethamraju......................................................................................................... 57

Chapter V

Globalising Software Development in the Local Classroom / Ita Richardson,

Sarah Moore, Alan Malone, Valentine Casey, and Dolores Zage......................................................... 82

Chapter VI

Creating an Entrepreneurial Mindset: Getting the Process Right for

Information and Communication Technology Students / Briga Hynes and Ita Richardson .............. 105

Chapter VII

Curriculum Change and Alignment with Industry: The Student Perspective /

Krassie Petrova and Gwyn Claxton.................................................................................................... 128

Table of Contents

Chapter VIII

Aligning Learning with Industry Requirements / Jocelyn Armarego................................................. 159

Chapter IX

Relevance of Computing Programmes to Industry Needs in

Jordan’s Higher Education Institutes / Ala M. Abu-Samaha............................................................... 195

Chapter X

Professionalism and Ethics: Is Education the Bridge? / Zeenath Reza Khan,

Ghassan al-Qaimari, and Stephen D. Samuel .................................................................................... 214

Chapter XI

Experiential Group Learning for Developing Competencies in Usability Practice /

Phil Carter.......................................................................................................................................... 242

Chapter XII

Industry-Academic Partnerships in Information Systems Education / Mark Conway ....................... 264

Chapter XIII

Industry-University Collaborations in Research for Information Systems:

An Exploratory Study of a Management Model / Tom O’Kane ......................................................... 279

Chapter XIV

Ethics for the Graduating Class: Issues, Needs, and Approaches /

Theresa M. Vitolo and Barry J. Brinkman .......................................................................................... 299

Chapter XV

Tomorrow’s Workforce Today: What is Required by Information Systems Graduates to Work

in a Collaborative Information Systems Workplace? / Kathy Lynch & Julie Fisher.......................... 311

Chapter XVI

COCA: Concept-Oriented Course Architecture Towards a Methodology for

Designing and Teaching Information System Courses / Youcef Baghdadi......................................... 327

Chapter XVII

Enhancing the Employability of ICT Students with Hybrid Skills: Insights from a

UK Survey with Small Business Managers / Yanquing Duan,

Daoliang Li, and Yongmei Bentley ..................................................................................................... 349

Chapter XVIII

Teaching Business Intelligence in Higher Education /

Paul Hawking and Robert Jovanovic ................................................................................................. 370

Compilation of References............................................................................................................... 379

About the Contributors ................................................................................................................... 414

Index................................................................................................................................................... 421

Preface .................................................................................................................................................xii

Acknowledgment...............................................................................................................................xvii

Chapter I

A Dynamic Structural Model of Education and Skills Requirements for Careers in

Information Systems: Perspectives Across Gender and Time /

Glenn R. Lowry, Rodney L. Turner, and Julie Fisher ............................................................................. 1

This chapter presents a dynamic structural equation model of the contribution and importance of edu￾cation and skills required of information systems (IS) professionals. The authors present a model that

links these areas and compares the application of this model to IS students and industry decision makers

who employ our graduates. The model was employed to identify gender differences in perceptions of

the relative contribution and importance of education and skills required of IS professionals. The model

was also used to describe how attitudes and perceptions of IS professionals change across career stages.

The model allows, with some confidence, a quantitative interpretation of the relative importance of the

respective variables from the perspectives of the student and employer-stakeholder groups toward the

education and career development of IS professionals.

Chapter II

Leveraging Diversity in Information Systems and Technology Education in the

Global Workplace / Eileen M. Trauth, Haiyan Huang,

Jeria L. Quesenberry, and Allison J. Morgan....................................................................................... 27

The need for information systems and technology (IS&T) education to include a course on human di￾versity in the global IT context is based upon two recognized IT workforce gaps. One is a participation

gap in which women and certain racial/ethnic groups are under represented in the IT workforce. The

second is a knowledge gap in which students who do not develop a cross-cultural awareness are not be￾ing adequately prepared for the global IT workplace of the 21st century. In response to this educational

Detailed Table of Contents

need, a new course was developed and introduced into the IS/T curriculum at Penn State University.

The goal of this course is to enable students to understand better the ways in which human diversity

affects the IT field.

Chapter III

Critique: Information Systems Academics’ Core Competency? / Mike Metcalfe ................................ 42

What is the core competency of IS academics, what do they know best compared to an experienced

IS manager? It cannot be an understanding of the technology or of how to manage it. The experienced

manager has lived with the realities of these problems daily. All the academic can offer the manager is

tools for thinking about whatever poses today’s problem. This chapter calls these ways of critiquing and

seeing the problem from differing perspectives.

Chapter IV

Enterprise Systems Software in the Business Curriculum:

Aligning Curriculum with Industry Requirements / Ravi Seethamraju................................................ 57

Along with developing an integrated business process view, multidisciplinary perspectives are considered

essential for the successful workplace performance of business graduates. Several reviews of higher

education by professional associations and experts in the past have highlighted such inadequacies in

the current business education and recommended changes to the curriculum. This chapter analyses the

pedagogical value and effectiveness of one such attempt at enhancing the students’ learning of enter￾prise integration. It analyses the benefits, strategies, and challenges of incorporating industry–standard,

enterprise system software solutions into the business school curricula and reports on the effectiveness

of such attempts. While encouragement and senior university management support to align curriculum

with industry requirements is essential for the successful integration of enterprise systems (ES) soft￾ware solutions, regular updating of the curriculum in line with the changes in the software versions and

technologies, inadequate administrative support in schools, lack of perceived academic career benefits,

difficulty in balancing theoretical knowledge, and practical software skills in the design, however, are

some of the challenges faced. Continuous evaluations and improvements of the curriculum are necessary

to align it with the contemporary and future workplace needs and deliver requisite skills and knowledge

to students.

Chapter V

Globalising Software Development in the Local Classroom / Ita Richardson,

Sarah Moore, Alan Malone, Valentine Casey, and Dolores Zage......................................................... 82

Software graduates are expected to work in global software development (GSD) environments. Some

of the authors, themselves educators at universities, provided learning environments which allowed stu￾dents to participate actively in GSD projects. The chapter discusses how the projects were implemented

and the educational research that was undertaken during the projects. Findings from this research are

presented.

Chapter VI

Creating an Entrepreneurial Mindset: Getting the Process Right for

Information and Communication Technology Students / Briga Hynes and Ita Richardson .............. 105

This chapter emphasises the importance of third-level education in preparing students for their career,

either as employee or as entrepreneur. We discuss how entrepreneurship education, through its broad and

integrative philosophy, accommodates the changing workplace demands. This is achieved through the

adoption of the process framework for information and communication technology (ICT) entrepreneur￾ship education. Describing how they can be modified to facilitate and encourage the more creative and

enterprising mindset in the ICT student, we present two courses that have been successfully implemented

at the University of Limerick.

Chapter VII

Curriculum Change and Alignment with Industry: The Student Perspective /

Krassie Petrova and Gwyn Claxton.................................................................................................... 128

Curriculum developers in the area of ICT are experiencing difficulties in the face of rapid technology

development and technology convergence as well as a dynamic job market. The need to understand the

dimensions of the process of aligning ICT curriculum with industry requirements is the focus of this

chapter. The study identifies stakeholders in the process and focuses on the role of students in the evalu￾ation of academic outcomes in relation to job market and employer demands. Data gathered through

several surveys was used to analyse the types of skills and capabilities that are currently being developed

in graduate profiles and that need to be developed in the future in order to maintain the balance between

academia and the workplace. Information about other stakeholder groups was also considered to support

and enhance the student perspective of the chapter.

Chapter VIII

Aligning Learning with Industry Requirements / Jocelyn Armarego................................................. 159

Studies of IT practitioners indicate that many of the skills considered important in industry are not well

covered in formal education. In general, these relate to soft and intellectual rather than technical skills.

This chapter looks at an action research study to apply models based on constructivist and reflective

approaches to learning in order to enhance student development of metacognitive strategies. These are

seen to address flexibility, adaptability, and other soft skills identified by practitioner studies as not well

developed during undergraduate study.

Chapter IX

Relevance of Computing Programmes to Industry Needs in

Jordan’s Higher Education Institutes / Ala M. Abu-Samaha............................................................... 195

Jordan’s REACH initiative has branded IT programmes at local universities as ineffective; that is, they

do not meet the needs of industry. The chapter presents the findings of a survey conducted in the year

2004 that identified many of the skill gaps that exist in current computing curricula designs. The survey

points out three major areas of knowledge identified as the most relevant areas of knowledge in comput-

ing programmes to industries’ needs: (1) systems/software development/engineering and management,

(2) electronic business development and management, and (3) system/software development tools and

languages. Also, the survey points out a number of areas of knowledge that the current structure of

computing/IS programmes lack, mainly: research skills and enterprise resource planning (ERP); online

database design and concurrency; applied design; business process analysis and re-engineering; sys￾tems integration and auditing; management information systems (MIS) applications; business ethics;

communication skills; creative thinking; problem solving; team work; image processing; and system

programming.

Chapter X

Professionalism and Ethics: Is Education the Bridge? /

Zeenath Reza Khan, Ghassan al-Qaimari, and Stephen D. Samuel................................................... 214

This chapter critically determines the root cause for unethical behaviour in the workplace to be “prior

knowledge” or educational background. It surveys both students and employees to determine the affect

of education or the absence of it on their perception of cyber ethics and corporate social responsibility

and concludes with strong recommendations for introducing courses at tertiary levels to overcome the

possible gap that exists from classrooms to workplaces.

Chapter XI

Experiential Group Learning for Developing Competencies in Usability Practice /

Phil Carter.......................................................................................................................................... 242

The chapter presents an overview of usability and a reflection on a number of years of experience in a

usability lab. It describes the development of an approach to usability testing called situated co-inquiry.

An overview of the teaching of usability is described and provides illustrations of teaching usability

using an experiential learning approach in a group setting.

Chapter XII

Industry-Academic Partnerships in Information Systems Education / Mark Conway ....................... 264

Many software vendors offer academic “partnership” programs that provide faculty and universities

access to their solutions and tools for teaching purposes. This chapter highlights several of the leading

“academic alliance” programs from firms such as Hyperion, Teradata, and SAP. The chapter is written

from an industry practitioner’s perspective and covers the motivation and metrics that firms expect from

these types of collaborations. It reviews the benefits of participation in these programs—updated cur￾ricula, access to new information and management systems, new skills for students, and so forth—and

discusses how, with common and realistic expectations, all of the participants can benefit from these

academic partnerships.

Chapter XIII

Industry-University Collaborations in Research for Information Systems:

An Exploratory Study of a Management Model / Tom O’Kane ......................................................... 279

It has been recognised that there is an urgent need to produce organisational devices that will make col￾laborations between academia and industry workable and beneficial for both partners. Private corpora￾tions view research collaborations with academia as business arrangements, but unlike the synergies that

one would normally associate with industry-industry collaborations, there are apparent dichotomies in

industry-university collaborations which require a special kind of synergy. This chapter, written primar￾ily from an industry perspective, is an exploratory study of a management model for industry-university

collaborations in IS research projects. It proposes the extension of concepts found in a commonly used

software process standard for managing software projects, to the management of IS project collabora￾tions with universities.

Chapter XIV

Ethics for the Graduating Class: Issues, Needs, and Approaches /

Theresa M. Vitolo and Barry J. Brinkman .......................................................................................... 299

Many of the issues and decisions facing technical professionals are not about technology but about the

ethical application and ramifications of the technology in society. Historically, teaching ethics was not

defined as part of the curriculum. However, accreditation boards, professional organizations, employers,

and society are stressing the need to incorporate ethical analysis into the curriculum. While a laudable

and timely goal, the teaching of ethics has inherent difficulties. By recognizing, understanding, and ad￾dressing these difficulties, young professionals can be given ethical tools to address the dilemmas.

Chapter XV

Tomorrow’s Workforce Today: What is Required by Information Systems Graduates to

Work in a Collaborative Information Systems Workplace? / Kathy Lynch and Julie Fisher............. 311

This chapter presents the investigation, design, and development of a curriculum framework that could

be used as part of an undergraduate IS degree program. Input from IS practitioners and professionals

helped identify employer requirements of their IS graduate recruits prior to working in a collaborative

team environment. The identified collaborative work skills, attributes, and knowledge form the basis

of a curriculum framework that is structured according to Bloom’s taxonomy of learning behaviours,

and level of progression throughout a degree program (intermediate or graduate) to form a modularised

framework that could be used in its entirety or in-part.

Chapter XVI

COCA: Concept-Oriented Course Architecture Towards a Methodology for

Designing and Teaching Information System Courses / Youcef Baghdadi......................................... 327

This chapter introduces the COCA as a new architectural style to design IS courses and curricula. COCA

represents the basic concepts of IS as main building blocks. COCA stipulates that the IS concepts are

provided by a business model and registered in a registry to be statically or dynamically discovered

by courses/curricula designers. COCA is also used as a method to teach information where the busi￾ness model, the main provider of concepts, is steadily instantiated as a case study while flowing in the

course/curriculum.

Chapter XVII

Enhancing the Employability of ICT Students with Hybrid Skills:

Insights from a UK Survey with Small Business Managers /

Yanquing Duan, Daoliang Li, and Yongmei Bentley........................................................................... 349

This chapter presents an empirical study investigating UK small business managers’ perceptions on the

importance of hybrid skills of ICT staff in supporting their business success. The study was an important

part of a European Commission funded pilot project. Findings confirm the importance of ICT staff’s

hybrid skills from small business managers’ point of view and add further empirical evidence to support

the call for a change in ICT staff training design and development in education and training organisations.

A hybrid skills model is discussed and significant implications of the findings are highlighted.

Chapter XVIII

Teaching Business Intelligence in Higher Education / Paul Hawking and Robert Jovanovic ........... 370

ERP systems have become a necessary IT infrastructure to support day-to-day transactions for the

world’s leading companies. Universities have now realised the importance of these types of systems and

have attempted to incorporate them into their curriculum offerings. Companies are now leveraging their

ERP systems through the adoption and use of customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain

management (SCM), and business intelligence (BI) solutions. Universities are now exploring how these

types of solutions can also be incorporated into their curriculum. The chapter provides a case study of

an approach to the development of BI curriculum by one university. This chapter provides a foundation

for other universities interested in BI curriculum development.

Compilation of References............................................................................................................... 379

About the Contributors ................................................................................................................... 414

Index................................................................................................................................................... 421

xii

Preface

Since its beginnings the growth and development of the information systems and technology (IS&T)

industry has been shaped, and limited, by the availability of sufficient numbers of skilled technical and

professional workers. The main stakeholders include educators, students, industry executives, human

resources professionals, and government officials and policymakers who are concerned with ensuring

and improving the ongoing supply of IS&T professionals.

In addition to traditional concerns including student recruitment and induction; curriculum content

and delivery; employment recruiting and career development; and the role of professional associations

many tertiary IS&T programs throughout the world have experienced a dramatic decline in student

numbers in recent years. The reasons for this decline in the face of growing demand are unclear.

Unfortunately, integration between and understanding among stakeholders is mostly topical and

uneven. What articulation exists is mainly local in nature, generally involving a limited number of col￾laborating partners in a specific geographical area.

IS&T have become so critical to human enterprise and society that improving the integration of the

stakeholders in the supply of new professionals, of understanding and “tightening” the human resources

supply chain for the global industry, has become increasingly necessary in order to meet the needs of

the industry in the decades ahead. This book is intended to help stakeholders to communicate and better

articulate their efforts.

The purpose of this book is to provide a forum for illuminating and better understanding the dynamics

of supply and demand for professionals in the IS&T industry. The objectives of the book include:

• Refining our understanding of the human resource supply chain for industry and research establish￾ments

• Identification and discussion of issues of supply and demand of IS/T professionals from a number

of stakeholder perspectives, including those of employers, students, recent graduates, and tertiary

educators

• Helping stakeholders to understand these issues and learn how others perceive and deal with

them

This book provides an international perspective from academic, industry, and government personalities

in Asia, Europe, Ireland, the Middle East, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In Chapter I, titled A Dynamic Structural Model of Education and Skills Requirements for Careers in

Information Systems: Perspectives Across Gender and Time, Glenn R. Lowry, Rod L. Turner, and Julie

Fisher present a directional model of the contribution and importance of education and skills required

of IS professionals. The model provides a replicable and robust empirical approach for the quantitative

interpretation of the relative importance of the respective variables from the perspectives of student and

employer stakeholder groups toward the education and career development of IS professionals.

xiii

In Chapter II, Leveraging Diversity in Information Systems and Technology Education in the Global

Workplace, Eileen M. Trauth and members of the Penn State University Center for the Information So￾ciety, including Haiyan Huang, Jeria L. Quesenberry, and Alison J. Morgan identity two human resource

gaps that affect the preparation of tomorrow’s IT workforce. These are a participation gap in which

women and certain racial/ethnic groups are under represented in the IT workforce, and a knowledge gap

in which students who do not develop cross-cultural awareness are not being adequately prepared for

the global IT workplace of the 21st century. The authors argue that diversity is a lens that can be used to

both understand human resource gaps and to develop curricular responses to them. The chapter presents

a course titled “Human Diversity in the Global Information Economy” to exemplify a way of addressing

the diversity dimension of the IT skill set.

In Chapter III, Critique: I. S. Academics’ Core Competency?, Mike Metcalfe explores the proposi￾tion that the core competency of IS academics is a capacity for pragmatic critical thinking for develop￾ing unique and useful concepts to reflect on industry-related problems, rather than addressing specific

technical problems and issues. Metcalfe discusses ways of critiquing problems, of seeing issues from

differing perspectives, and argues that academics can usefully serve industry by developing and teaching

new ways to critique management practice.

In Chapter IV, titled Enterprise Systems Software in the Business Curriculum: Aligning Curriculum

with Industry Requirements, Ravi Seethamraju presents a review of literature on the inadequacies of

business education, the pedagogical value of incorporating enterprise systems in the curriculum, and

an analysis of the effectiveness of curriculum design and delivery. This chapter presents an analysis of

the pedagogical value and effectiveness of an attempt at enhancing student learning about enterprise

integration through IS&T. The author analyses the benefits, strategies, and challenges of incorporating

industry–standard, enterprise system software solutions into business school curricula and reports on

the effectiveness of some attempts.

In Chapter V, Globalising Software Development in the Local Classroom, Ita Richardson, Alan

Malone, Sarah Moore, Valentine Casey, and Dolores Zage provide Irish and American academic and

practitioner perspectives on preparing students to work in an environment in which the software industry

has had to adapt to a global software development (GSD) strategy that has become increasingly popular

as software development has become a globally sourced commodity. The authors provided students

with an opportunity to take part in a learning experience that transcended geographical and institutional

boundaries, giving them first hand experience of working within globally distributed software teams.

They identified three specific forms of learning that took place: (1) pedagogical, (2) pragmatic, and the

(3) achievement of specific globally distributed competencies. The chapter presents a discussion of how

the projects were implemented and the educational research that was undertaken during the projects.

Findings from the research are presented.

In Chapter VI, Creating an Entrepreneurial Mindset: Getting the Process Right for Information

and Communication Technology Students, Briga Hynes and Ita Richardson emphasize the importance

of entrepreneurship education in preparing students for professional information and communication

technology (ICT) careers. The authors discuss how entrepreneurship education, through its broad and

integrative philosophy, accommodates to changing workplace demands. This approach links together

the synergy of enterprising activity and the small firm ICT sector through entrepreneurship education.

This is achieved through the adoption of the process framework for ICT entrepreneurship education.

Describing how to facilitate and encourage a more creative and enterprising mindset in ICT students, the

authors present two courses that have been successfully implemented at the University of Limerick.

xiv

In Chapter VII, Curriculum Change and Alignment with Industry: The Student Perspective, Krassie

Petrova and Gwyn Claxton focus on the need to understand the dimensions of the process of aligning

ICT curriculum with industry requirements. This chapter presents the design and results of a study that

focuses on students as stakeholders in the education process. A general framework based on a nomological

net is introduced and used to derive the research models underpinning data gathering and the subsequent

analysis of those data. The findings indicate that students realistically evaluate gaps in their learning

but put more emphasis on technical skills, ignoring or undervaluing soft and business skills, despite

academic efforts to develop these through skill-centered teaching. The authors also found a mismatch

between student expectations of required skills and skills demanded by employers.

In Chapter VIII, Aligning Learning with Industry Requirements, Jocelyn Armarego is concerned that

the underlying “socialization” necessary for new graduates to achieve “working professional” status

is poorly addressed in formal education. After introducing a framework for comparison, this chapter

presents an action research study in which nontraditional and innovative learning models are applied

to address identified mismatches in alignment between formal IT education and industry requirements.

The findings of the study suggest that models which focus on independent learning and soft skills pre￾pare students to enter industry with enhanced ability to engage in the career-long professional learning

required for success in professional practice.

In Chapter IX, Relevance of Computing Programmes to Industry Needs in Jordan’s Higher Educa￾tion Institutes, Ala M. Abu-Samaha reports on efforts in Jordan to better align industry requirements

with academic curricula. The author aims to articulate the concerns and issues surrounding the relevance

of computing programmes of higher education institutes in Jordan to market and employer needs. The

chapter presents the findings of a study conducted in 2004 that identified many hard and soft skill gaps

in existing curricula.

In Chapter X, Professionalism and Ethics: Is Education the Bridge? Zeenath Reza Khan, Ghassan

al-Qaimari, and Stephen D. Samuel, writing from the United Arab Emirates, take up the topic of the role

of ethics in the ICT profession. This chapter reports a study of the knowledge and views held by ICT

professionals on ethical issues such as personal use of e-mail, net surfing, net privacy, and copyrights,

recognized by professional societies such as ACM, IEEE, and ACS. Using a grounded survey approach,

the authors investigated the relationship between unethical behavior in the workplace and knowledge

and values gained through high school and university education. They investigated the extent to which

unethical behavior is related to students’ education and awareness of ethical issues. The authors suggest

ways to include material that highlights ethical issues in the workplace.

In Chapter XI, Experiential Group Learning for Developing Competencies in Usability Practice, Phil

Carter provides an industry perspective of software usability and reflects on his years of experience in a

usability lab. Over the past several years, an approach to usability called situated co-inquiry has become

a useful way to structure the teaching of software usability. This chapter introduces and illustrates how

this experiential learning approach has been used effectively in a group setting.

In Chapter XII, Industry-Academic Partnerships in Information Systems Education, Mark Conway

highlights several of the leading IT-focused, industry-academic programs such as Hyperion’s Academic

Alliance Program, the Teradata University Network, and SAP’s University Alliance Program and refer￾ences similar initiatives from Cisco, SUN, and IBM. As an industry practitioner, Conway offers insight

into what motivates companies to sponsor industry-academic partnership programs, what the goals of

those programs are, and how participating companies and universities benefit.

In Chapter XIII, Industry-University Collaborations in Research for Information Systems: An Explor￾atory Study of a Management Model, Tom O’Kane, writing from an industry perspective, has conducted