Information Technology & Economic Development

Eileen M. Trauth, PhD

Abstract

Ireland’s rise from a poor, peripheral country in Europe to a wealthy nation that is fully engaged on the global stage serves as an important illustrative case of how economic development can be achieved through the deployment of information technology. In the case of Ireland, the approach was to develop an indigenous IT sector by ‘importing’ expertise from foreign multinationals. In her Fulbright-sponsored, ethnographic study of the emergence of the information economy in Ireland, Trauth demonstrated the influence of factors in the socio-cultural context on the evolution of an information sector, its workers and workplaces. In particular, she showed the role that infrastructure, economy, culture and public policy each played in the evolution of Ireland’s information sector. Her latest work on IT and econmic development is examining the impact of the information sector on Irish society and the application of this research approach to regions in the USA. 

References

Trauth, E.M. 1999. “Leapfrogging an IT Labor Force: Multinational and Indigenous Perspectives.” Journal of Global Information Management (7) 2: 22-32.

Trauth, E.M. 2000. The Culture of an Information Economy: Influences and Impacts in the Republic of Ireland. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Trauth, E.M. 2001. “Mapping Information-sector Work to the Workforce: The Lessons from Ireland,” Communications of the ACM, Special Issue on The Global IT Workforce 44) 7: 74-75.

Eileen M. Trauth is Associate Dean for Diversity, Outreach and International Engagement, Professor of Information Sciences and Technology and Director of the Center for the Information Society at The Pennsylvania State University. During March – June 2008 she holds the Universität Klagenfurt – Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Gender Studies. Her research is concerned with societal, cultural and organizational influences on information technology and the information technology professions with a special focus on the role of diversity within the field. As a Fulbright Scholar in Ireland, Dr. Trauth undertook a multi-year investigation of socio-cultural influences on the emergence of Ireland’s information economy. She has also analyzed cultural, economic, infrastructure and public policy influences on the development of information technology occupational clusters in the U.S. Dr. Trauth has investigated gender under representation in the information technology professions in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the United States with grants from the National Science Foundation and Science Foundation Ireland. In addition to her work on gender, she has published papers and books on qualitative research methods, global informatics, information policy, information management and information systems skills.