The sustainability era will required the development of information systems that support the general goal of creating a sustainable civilization. Sensor networks will collect data about the state of environment and these will be critical to making decisions that reduce environmental impact
Teaching tip: This is a good question for class discussion using two lists to illustrate the differences between the eras. A key point to make is the relationship between information systems and dominant logic.
Information jobs typically require many more years of education than industrial era jobs. They also require continual education to retain valued skills because of the high pace of technological change.
The development of paper and other writing systems was very important because they provided humans with a means to record and communicate knowledge. If written down, knowledge can be stored more reliably. Previously, knowledge was passed orally from person to person and since human brains are highly error-prone, much of the knowledge was forgotten or changed.
A good example are the four quite different stories about the life of Jesus written down in the New Testament by four different people several years after his death. Before this, stories of Jesus had been passed orally between people until four different people independently decided to write everything down. Although the authors wrote about the same person, their work resulted in quite different accounts of the life of Jesus.
Hard information is extremely accurate, unambiguous, and reliable. Information from unidentified sources, such as rumors or gossip, is termed soft information. Decision makers prefer hard information as a basis for their decisions but often only soft information is available.
Information exchange also varies in the degree of information richness. During lean information exchange, only the bare data are communicated. No extra information is provided and no possibility exists to ask additional questions. Numeric documents are considered to be an extremely lean communication medium. They communicate the numbers and nothing else. During rich information exchange, not only are the spoken or written words or numbers communicated but also other information such as the tone of voice, highlighted parts, or face expressions. A face-to-face conversation is an extremely rich communication medium.
The three major types of information connected with organizational change are:
During benchmarking, actual performance is compared to a given goal. This goal is typically based on best industry practices. A business could use benchmarking in a variety of situations as long as the practices and numbers are comparable in a meaningful way. Typical applications for benchmarking include production time and order processing time.
Gap information is information about the difference (gap) between desired and actual performance. Exception reporting is a principal method of providing gap information.
An example of how information is used as a means of change in marketing is the popularity of the frequent flyer programs of most airlines. These programs are aiming to enhance customer loyalty and facilitate the collection of customer information. Database technology sits at the heart of these programs to manage the large amounts of data collected. Without database technology, frequent flyer programs could not exist.
Senior managers do not need very detailed information. They expect to get the "big picture" when reading reports or talking to colleagues. Only in cases where it seems important should detailed data be made available.
As perceived hardness decreases, managers demand more information in the hope that more information might decrease the level of uncertainty inherent in soft information. For example, it is likely that the manager believes a written report produced by the company's MIS department that 90% of all orders for this week have been filled. On the other hand, if the secretary tells him that a rumor is spreading at the plant that the workers are planning to strike next week, he will try to find information from other sources to check the validity of this rumor.
To save time and effort, decision makers often just search for enough information to make a satisfactory decision.
Going shopping is a perfect example of information satisficing. When buying a certain product, only very few people actually look in every store to compare the prices, quality, and features of different brands. Typically, as long as these factors come close to meeting the customer's requirements, the product is bought to save time and effort.
Conversation, electronic mail, meetings, reports, groupware, management information systems, office automation systems, imaging processing systems, computer aided design, geographic information systems, voice mail, voice recording systems, decision support systems, and expert systems are all examples of common information delivery systems.
GIS stands for geographic information system. This system contains mostly graphical data about a geographic region. In effect, a GIS is a computerized map that can reveal additional or more detailed information at the click of a button. Often a GIS is used to keep an overview of a large geographical area. For example, in case of a fire, a city's GIS might point out where hazardous material is stored in the vicinity.
An organization's memory is typically fragmented between a wide variety of formats and technologies throughout the organization. This includes written reports on the secretary's desktop computer, production databases, sales databases, people's personal records, and so forth. EIS tries to integrate the information from all possible sources, but for this a continued and quite large effort is required. A perfect organizational memory system would incorporate all of the organization's memory so that it can be accessed as a single unit.
Teaching tip: Get students to collect the most recent data for these companies and comment on the changes. You can probably do this in class if you have access to the Web
An exam grade is relatively hard information. A 79 in an exam means that according to the teacher the student answered 79% of the exam questions correctly and that grade is later used to calculate the final grade for the class. Of course, this does depend a little on the type of exam (e.g. math objective vs. English essay).
This is not a simple exercise. The hardness of a piece of information is highly dependent on the person's perception of the source of the information. Even a numerical report can be soft information if it were created by an unreliable person known to falsify reports.
This can be a good classroom discussion. Get students to work down the list from hardest to softest and indicate where they would stop storing information formally.
Depending on the situation, one could use a lean media (i.e., lay the exam on the kitchen table where the parent or spouse will find it later) or rich media (i.e., tell the parent or spouse face-to-face) that one has failed the exam. The choice of medium depends entirely on personal preference and the relationship to the spouse or parent. In classroom discussions, most students opt for lean because they can avoid feedback and questioning.
Answers will vary, depending on who the students interview and for what companies these people work. Students can ask parents, relatives, or friends.
Information type examples:
Short-term information:
Medium-term information:
Long-term information:
As in question 21, the answers will vary depending on who is interviewed.
Organizational memory systems are places where data of various formats are stored. Thus they can be compared to a data warehouse--an organized data store. The various information depositories need to be integrated so that a user can write a single query to find all information on this topic available in the organization.
Much of this information is soft information. Even if it is presented in the form of numbers, it is quite likely that these figures are only the result of more or less accurate predictions. The only relatively hard piece of information is the necessary education level needed to work in this job. For example, to become a teacher in the US, one has to go to a college and obtain at least a bachelor's degree in education.
In a university class, students should learn all types of knowledge. Students often misjudge the importance of system understanding and self-motivation skills. However, without a complete set of knowledge, the student will not be able to use the acquired knowledge appropriately.
As argued in the previous answer, a good combination of all types of knowledge is important. For an organization, cognitive knowledge is the most important. However, as missing cognitive and advanced knowledge can be gained from reading a book or by consulting a database, one could argue that system understanding, self-motivation, and creativity are the types of knowledge that make a person most valuable to a company.
Teaching Tip: These are good questions for class discussion.
Sales information: How often was each item sold?
Customer information: Who are the most important customers?
Reports on the running costs of the organization
Profit reports
Previous year's performance compared to previous year's plan
Previous year's performance compared to competitor's performance
Reports about potential possibilities to increase sales or reduce costs
Information that would help you change The Expeditioner may include continuous progress reports. Depending on the goals, these reports would reflect how close the organization has come to realizing its goals.
One could use information systems to make the operation of the enterprise more efficient and thus save costs. Database technology could be used to store important data that have to be accessible at short notice, perhaps collecting information about customers so that their needs are more accurately met.
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