Public and Private Information Systems: How Are They Similar? How Are They Different

Abstract

Information managers need to be aware of the fact that managing IT in the public sectorpresents different challenges than those faced in the private sector. However, there hasbeen little systematic attention given to these differences by IT researchers. The purposeof this chapter is to review these differences and to present some empirical informationconcerning the differences between IT management between the two sectors. I concludeby discussing the implications of these differences for managers involved in publicsector IT.