Chapter 4
Information, Management, and
Decision Making
Information, Management, and
Decision Making
• How to IS can be designed to support managers?
• What Managers Do?
– The responsibilities of managers range into a wide area
of activities.
– Putting Management and IS in Context
• The formal study of management began in 1880s.
• It was initiated by the Engineers.
• It is as a discipline began to emerge as industrial org. grew in
size from 100 to 1000s of workers.
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
• Since then three schools have emerged: technical competence,
organizational adaptability to environments, and finally with
know-how and intimate knowledge of the product and
production process.
– Three Schools of Management
• The schools can be categorized according to their periods of
time.
• The classical period begins in 1880.
• The contemporary period begins in the late 1920s.
• The postmodern period begins in the early 1960s.
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
– The Technical-Rational Perspective
• Description of management and organizations that
focus on the mechanistic aspects of organization and
the formal management functions of planning,
organizing, coordinating,deciding, and controlling.
• Watching the internal processes to continuously be
improved is reflected in IS field such as
reengineering, value chain analysis, business
process design, and total quality management.
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
– The Behavioral Perspective
• Descriptions of management based on behavioral scientists’
observations of how organizations actually behave and what
managers actually do in their jobs.
• The org is seen as an open, biological organism much like a
cell or animal.
• The effectiveness of the org depend on its ability to adapt to its
environment.
• Also depend on arranging itself internally so that all
constituents are supported and sustained.
• The behavioral perspective had a powerful impact on the IS:
– User acceptance
– Strategic IS
– Network org and virtual org
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
• In behavioral perspective the managers behave appears to be
less systematic, more informal, less reflective, more reactive,
less well organized, and much more frivolous.
– Managerial Roles: Mintzberg
• Managerial roles are the expectations of the activities that
managers should perform in an org.
• Interpersonal roles describe the managers act as figureheads
and leaders for the organization.
• Informational roles describe the managers act as the nerve
centers of their org, receiving and disseminating critical info.
• Decisional roles are the roles where managers initiate
activities, handle disturbances, allocate resources, and
negotiate conflicts.
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
– The Cognitive Perspective and Postmodern Era
• Descriptions of management and org. that emphasize the role
of knowledge, core competency, and perceptual filters.
• Introduction to Decision Making
– Decision making remains one of the more challenging
roles of a manager. IS helped managers communicate
and distribute info but provided limited help in decision
making.
– Levels of Decision Making
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• Strategic decision making determines the objectives,
resources, and policies of org.
• Management control decision making is concerned with how
(cont.)
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
• (cont.) efficiently and effectively resources are utilized and
how well operational units are performing.
• Knowledge-level decision making deals with evaluating new
ideas for products and services.
• Operational control decision making determines how to
carry out the specific tasks set by strategic and middle
management decision makers.
– Types of Decisions: Structured vs. Unstructured
• Structured decisions are repetitive, routine, and involve a
definite procedure.
• Unstructured decisions are novel, important, and nonroutine,
and there is no well-understood procedure for making them.
• Semi-structured decisions are part of problem has clear-cut
answer provided by an accepted procedure.
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
– Types of Decisions and Types of Systems
• Each level of the organization contains both structured and
unstructured problems (Figure 4-4).
– Stages of Decision Making
• Intelligence consists of identifying the problems occurring in
the org.
• During design the individual designs possible solutions to the
problem.
• Choice consists of choosing among alternatives.
• Implementation is to adopt the solution and monitor its
progress through reporting system.
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
• How Information Technology has Changed the
Management Process
– There is a big difference between how traditional
managers perform the management function and solved
problems in past and the contemporary managers act.
– Traditional and Contemporary Management
• Contemporary views rely much more on the involvement,
enabling, and empowering of lower-level mngmt and workers.
• Contemporary depends on a proper understanding of the
environment, opening firm to outside influences and to
contemporary social and ethical currents.
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Information, Management, and
Decision Making
• IT played a role in the changing process of mgmt.
• Managers use IS to give more responsibilities to workers,
facilitate communications, and decision-making power in the
new org.
– Implications for System Design
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• Managers use IS formal IS to plan, organize, and coordinate.
They also use it for less obvious tasks such as interpersonal
communication & personal agendas.
• Ad hoc IS may have more impact on managers because of the
use of more current info and be adjusted to unique situations.
• The design should make a use of info at the most general
level.
• Communicate with other sources inside and outside
• Provide effective means of comm. among managers and
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workers.