IMO it all comes down to one simple thing. A few hundred years ago, most people didn't know to read or write. So nobody gave a thought about really clever business processes, proper paperwork, of the complexity used today - simply because there was no manpower available to implement such things.
A few generations from now on, the level of computer literacy will grow. Only then will proper usage of hardware and software be an issue to deal with. Until then, I don't think there's anything to be done.
In almost all business domains, executives often delegate decision making to specialists, and in all cases specialists must say what they think before an exec takes a decision. Only in IT does it happen that execs feel free to completely disregard what specialists say. Else we'd have no more Windows servers anywhere.
But what's even worse is that there are many ppl running around pretending to be specialists, when in fact they don't know too much. Or they do know a lot, but not in that particular field in which they have to provide some advice to execs.
So I'd say, the first thing to do is to ask execs if they ask the question just in order to have asked it, or they really want to do something about it. Because the first ppl who need to change will are the bosses, if anything should work better regarding IT. They are the first who need to become more than simple computer users, or power users, and dive a little deeper into computers than other users. They don't need a college degree in computers, but in their position high school is a must. Elementary school won't do. If they are serious about it. Or, they could completely delegate it, and not mess with it anymore, but no exec is really happy with delegating something to people which do something he doesn't understand.
Besides, the perception of IT ppl that they are the only ones which do understand what they do is correct. However, they usually lack the inverse perception, that they usually don't understand at all what others do, which, if present, would also be correct. (For instance, I probably could easily write an accounting package with the help of an accountant, without ever really understanding what accounting really is about - I tried it a few times, I never was able to grok it.)
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