Information Technology Policies and Procedures against Unstructured Data: A Phenomenological Study of Information Technology Professionals
Vesal Tirgari · ProQuest LLC eBooks · 2010
ABSTRACT The phenomenological study explored the lived experiences and perceptions of a purposive sample of 20 IT professionals (managers, engineers, administrators, and analysts) in the state of Virginia, Texas, and Washington DC. The focus of this research study was to learn the perceptions of IT professionals who are or once were in a decision-making position concerning the contents of network storage. The study's interest was in patterns of use for network storage in organizational settings. The specific problem was the underdeveloped IT policies and procedures that can lead to the presence of unstructured data that does not represent a significant value to an organization. The focus of this research study was to seek from these IT professionals their perceptions of what the connection is between the IT policies and procedures against the storage of unstructured data. The significance of the phenomenological study to leadership was to provide leaders with the opportunity to facilitate an organizational environment, which the business corresponds with the direction of IT and the leaders are committed to make good use of technology to support the organizations needs. The findings are aimed to provide IT leaders and IT professional's methods on how to better control unstructured data, build policies and procedures, educate end users, and guide better data management. INTRODUCTION Decades ago information technology (IT) was comprised of centralized mainframes that were connected to dedicated disks and tape drives (Castagna, 2008, p. 6). IT professionals of various organizations are now using servers that have the capabilities of quad core processors, high-speed memory, high capacity drives, and virtualization (Castagna, 2008). Organizations are becoming more complex with the introduction of new technology requiring strict security guidelines to be enforced and documented (Whitten, 2008). Leaders of organizations establish IT policies against improper use of technology and use of the network. The lack of developed IT policies and procedures pertaining to the storage of business related and personal unstructured data is a problem because unstructured data takes up valuable business resources (Lazarides, 2007). Lazarides (2007) noted that IT auditing is obligatory for organizations and so are best practice methods, and protocols, which are being implemented to insure internal control and accountability. The phenomenological study aims to provide recommendations to IT leaders and IT professionals on how to better control unstructured data, build policies and procedures, educate end users, and guide better data management. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore from a purposive sample of 20 IT professionals (managers, engineers, administrators, and analysts). The participants were all from Virginia, Texas and Washington DC. Additionally, the study was to learn the perceptions of IT professionals on how and why data storage decisions were made by exploring contents of network storage and IT policies against unstructured data on a corporate wide network. For the purpose of this study the term IT policies and procedures is defined as a set of organizational wide protocols that is documented and followed to ensure integrity, security, and availability of computer systems. Creswell suggested that new knowledge might be gained from insights and lived experiences of 5 to 20 individuals (Creswell, 2007). A total of 20 participants were interviewed for this qualitative phenomenological study. The phenomenological research allowed for the lived experiences of the participants involved or, who were once involved with an issue relating to data storage to be captured and be used for further exploration (Moustakas, 1994). Significance of Study This study is important because every year organizations spend a large amount of their IT budget on storage in order to meet the high demand of data growth (Swartz, 2007). …