Information Technology (IT) Management Essay Questions
IT MANAGEMENT QUESTIONS 2
A.Compare the benefits of TCP vs. UDP. What are the major differences between the two protocols? How
do these differences affect the choice of protocol in an application? Justify your choice between UDP and
TCP in the following applications:
1.Remote surgery
2.Online gaming
3.Online shopping
B.Consider telecommuting in terms of managerial decisions. How would managerial style change to
account for employees who telecommute a majority of the time? Does this make it easier or more difficult
to accomplish common objectives? Why or why not? Provide rationale to support your answer.
C.A podcast is a digital recording that is available on the Internet for playback on mobile devices or media
players. Provide an example of using a podcast as an advertising tool. What could be a possible revenue
model of podcasting? How does podcasting differ from traditional advertising? Consider that users
choose to subscribe to a podcast whereas traditional advertising is broadcast to the user intermingled
with other media. Give examples of mobile applications that can be used for podcasting
Question A
The benefits of TCP Protocol include: control of flow the rate of data exchange, segment
size, network control and flow control. On the other hand, the benefits of UDP Protocol include
its time sensitivity and ability of its servers towards answering small queries from a large pool of
clients (McKeen & Smith, 2014). The differences between TCP and UDP include: TCP is more
reliable than UDP; TCP transmissions are ordered in a sequence whereas messages sent through
UDP may not be in a sequence; and finally TCP connection is heavyweight while that of UDP is
lightweight (McNurlin, 2009). TCP Protocol is used in remote surgery because of its preferred in
a procedure that requires error correction facilities at network interface level. UDP Protocol is
the choice for online gaming and online shopping, which are time sensitive applications for
online gaming and the servers are requiring the ability of answering small queries from a large
pool of clients for online shopping (O’Brien, 2013).
Question B
A consideration of telecommuting from the perspective of managerial decisions means
that, a lateral direction model of managerial decisions has to be adopted whereby the manager
IT MANAGEMENT QUESTIONS 3
has to engage employees outside an organizational work place that is centralized (Sardeshmukh,
Sharma & Golden, 2012). According to Matthews & Williams (2012), the management style has
to change from classical management styles to Laissez-faire management style where most of
employees work by telecommuting. In this style of management, employees are motivated to
work independently and allowed to nurture their creativity by getting a chance for their ideas to
flourish. The management should then provide guidance when need and facilitate brainstorming
in decision-making, which makes the manager to seem more of a mentor instead of a leader
(Matthews & Williams, 2012). This makes it difficult to accomplish common objectives, which
require frequent meetings to exchange ideas due to lack of trust and teamwork originating from
the lack of frequent face-to-face contact (Sardeshmukh et al., 2012).
Question C
During this era of digital advertising, podcasting has undoubtedly become a substantial
channel through which consumption of digital content take place (McNurlin, 2009). An example
of using a podcast as an advertising tool include the use of Apple iTunes app through which
advertisers can upload their promotional media clips that are viewed by subscribers as they
stream their preferred digital content (O’Brien, 2013). The possible revenue model of podcasting
would be through subscriptions whereby a fee is paid, and the difference between podcast and
traditional advertising is that the former is based of digital content consumptions (McKeen &
Smith, 2014). Some examples of mobile applications possible for use in podcasting include
Apple iTunes app, Oracle, IBM among others.
IT MANAGEMENT QUESTIONS 4
References
Matthews, H. S. & Williams, E. (2012). Telework Adoption and Energy Use in Building and
Transport Sectors in the United States and Japan. Journal of Infrastructural
Systems, 11(1), 21-30. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)1076-0342(2005)11:1(21)
McKeen, J. D. & Smith, H. A. (2014). Making IT Happen: Critical Issues in IT Management,
Wiley Series in Information Systems. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.
McNurlin, B. (2009). Information Systems Management in Practice (8 th ed.). New York, NY:
Prentice Hall.
O’Brien, J. (2013). Management Information Systems: Managing Information Technology in the
Internetworked Enterprise. Boston, MA: Irwin McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-112373-3
Sardeshmukh, S. R., Sharma, D., & Golden, T. (2012). Impact of Telework on exhaustion and
job engagement: A job demands and resources model. New Technology, Work and
Employment, 27(3), 193-207.
