“…A series of surveys repeatedly reported that IS personnel generally show their deficiency most seriously in these important areas (Lee et al, 1995;Nelson, 1991;Todd et al, 1995;Trauth et al, 1993). Table 1 Classifications of IS abilities/knowledge/skills Authors Categories Ashenhurst (1972) People, models, systems, computers, organizations, society Couger et al (1995) Communication, computer applications systems, information technology and tools, interpersonal relationships, management, problem solving, systems development methodologies, systems theory and concepts, professionalism Lee et al (1995) Business functional knowledge (H), interpersonal and management skills (H), technology management knowledge (M), Technical specialty knowledge (L) Leitheiser (1992) (developer skills) interpersonal (H), analysis & design (M), programming (M), business (M), environment (L), programming language (L), specific application (L) (specialist skills) database & data communication (1), software (2), hardware (3), advanced applications (4) Nelson (1991) Organizational knowledge, organizational skills, organizational unit, general IS knowledge, technical skills, IS product Todd et al (1995) Hardware, software, business, management, social, problem solving, development methodology Young & Lee (1996) The number in parentheses represents the rank of importance of the items of each category, with 1 the most important. H, M, and L in parentheses represent high, middle, and low importance, respectively.…”