The period around the transition from the 20th to the 21st century was characterized by high velocity and global change and the emerging power of information organizations. The cold war era ended in 1989 when some of the first eastern and middle European countries declared their independence from the Soviet Union. This new political situation, together with new information and telecommunication technology, cleared the way for real global communication networks. During the 1990s, rapid changes in international political relations and the globalization of business were taking place. During the last few years, the general economic slowdown has reduced the demand for IS graduates, however organizations are still processing transactions and managers are making decisions. The demand for data management has not disappeared.
Teaching tip: This is a good question for class discussion using two lists to illustrate the differences between the 1980s and the 1990s. A key point to make is the relationship between information technology and democracy. Countries cannot avoid a freer flow of ideas when they adopt advanced information technology.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
EIS stands for executive information system. As the name implies, EIS has been developed for executives. These systems are very easy to use and are a way to integrate information from multiple sources. A major feature of EIS is that each single EIS is custom-made for one particular executive's requirement and continuously updated and changed to adapt to the executive's changing requirements.
Groupware is a general term applied to a range of software systems designed to improve group work. For example, groupware might facilitate document exchange or brainstorming.
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.
Information type examples:
Short-term information:
Medium-term information:
Long-term information:
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.
This page is part of the promotional and support material for Data Management (fifth edition) by Richard T. Watson |