As the field of information technology continues to grow and impact the personnel and management of organizations, changes have occurred in the way that such people contribute and participate in effective business operations. Managing the Human Side of Information Technology: Challenges and Solutions addresses how to effectively manage the ways in which information technology impacts both human and organizational behavior. Introduction to Managing the Human Side of Information Technology: Challenges and Solutions This book is the second in the Series in Managing the Human Side of Information Technology sponsored by Idea Group Publishing. This Series was created to address the influence of information technology (IT) in modern organizations and its effect on individuals, focusing on managing the human side of this technology for competitive advantage and organizational prosperity. As the co-editors of the first Series book noted: Organizations must understand that there are a vast number of information resources, particularly human resources, while recognizing the potential of [IT] in support of managerial activities. The days of identifying computer-based information systems as only a collection of hardware and software are gone. In order to be able to achieve greater utilization of this technology, there must be much more emphasis given to the value of individuals who handle and use information resources (Szewczak & Khosrowpour, p. i). Technologies continue to change and evolve at a rapid pace. The dazzling growth of the Internet as a provider of a host of information resources is perhaps the most significant example of this technological change and evolution. How this technology has impacted people and how people have responded to it in turn have provided students of the human side of IT a fertile ground for study and research. The chapters of this book are organized into Parts that correspond to four broad categories of interest: 1) leadership, risk, spirit and IT; 2) organizational communication and IT; 3) organizational groups and IT; and 4) culture and IT. Within the leadership, risk and IT category (Part I), Walter O. Einstein and John H. Humphreys present a new leader behavior model in The Changing Face of Leadership: The Influence of Information Technology. This new model is needed in light of the degree to which emerging instances of IT have changed both the organizational context and the traditional leader-follower power relationship. When used with effective diagnosis, the new model provides guidance to leaders in situations where they have power as well as situations where power is lacking. In The Social Antecedents of Business Process Planning Effectiveness, Sofiane Sahraoui departs from earlier studies that view the organization as made up of distinct IT and business functions. Instead the organization is viewed holistically, i.e., information systems form the skeleton of business processes, and business processes cannot be disentangled from information systems. A model of business process planning effectiveness is presented which identifies information-enabled leadership, planning culture, knowledge worker management and strategic alignment as key social antecedents. Various human side risk factors must be considered if IT is to be used successfully to restructure more traditional jobs at the operational and managerial levels of organizations. In Assessing the Risks of IT-Enabled Jobs, Laura Lally appeals to Normal Accident Theory and the Theory of High Reliability Organizations to examine the issues related to reengineering jobs with IT. Key questions are raised which must be answered if managerial jobs are to be designed that wills be more efficient and realistic for a given organizational environment: Are the demands of the new job realistic for the organization s workforce? Do the new jobs consider the issues of separation of duties and redundancy? Do the new jobs require greater degrees of autonomy and responsibility? Huub J.M. Ruel offers an interesting look at the human side of office IT in the broadest sense in The Non-Technical Side of Office Technology: Managing the Clarity of the Spirit? He argues that the management of office IT projects would be more effective if systems developers were more focused on the concepts of spirit and appropriation as developed in Adaptive Structuration Theory, which starts from the assumption that the effects of advanced IT are not a function of the technology itself but of the way the IT is used. His study has implications for changes in internal organizational environment as well as job design characteristics. Within the organizational communication and IT category (Part II), Dianne Willis examines Computer Mediated Communication The Power of Email as a Driver for Changing the Communication Paradigm. Using her own institution as the focus, Willis reports on a survey of people s feelings about the use of email and how they see future patter