Key MIS Concepts
August 24 – August 30
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People as a Key Resource:
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The single most important resource in an organization is not technology, but it is people
(p. 10).
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Technology is a tool that can help an organization produce and manage information more
efficiently. In the end, the most important thing to an organization is what its people
decide to do with the information.
o
People’s ability to use information is known as intellectual capacity (p. 15).
o
Therefore, it is important that you become a technology-literate knowledge worker. A
technology-literate knowledge worker is a person who knows how and when to apply
technology (p. 11).
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You cannot apply technology to any given process and expect that process instantly
efficient and effective. In addition, you also must be an information-literate knowledge
worker. Information-knowledge workers (p. 11):
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Can define what information they need.
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Know how and where to obtain that information.
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Understand the information once they receive it.
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Can act appropriately based on the information to help the organization achieve
the greatest advantage.
o
Although you may be both a technology-literate and information-literate knowledge
worker, you must also be resolved to use that information in an ethical manner. Ethics
are the principles and standards that guide our behavior toward other people (p. 13).

Being a good knowledge worker also involves protecting yourself and your
organization from unethical people (p. 13).
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Decentralized Computing and Shared Information:
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Because most organizations have so many different people performing many different
tasks, the concepts of decentralized computing and shared information have become very
important (p. 17).
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Shared information is an environment in which an organization’s information is
organized in one central location, allowing anyone to access and use it as he or she needs
it (p. 17).
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Decentralized information is an environment in which an organization splits computing
power and locates it in functional business areas as well as on the desktops of knowledge
workers (p. 17).
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The combinations of those two concepts are known as client-server computing. The
computers that store the information in the centralized location are known as servers, and
the computers that connect to the servers are known as a client.
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Roles and Goals of Information Technology:
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The textbook identifies six major roles and goals of information technology (p. 21):



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Increase employee productivity
Enhance decision making.
Improve team collaboration.

Create business partnerships and
alliances.
 Enable global reach.
 Facilitate organizational
transformation.
Increase employee productivity:
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IT can reduce time, errors, and costs associated with processing information in a
variety of ways.
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To increase productivity, organizations often use a tool called online transaction
processing (OLTP). OLTP is the gathering of input information, processing that
information, and updating existing information to reflect the gathered and
processed information (p. 22).

Another way to increase employee productivity is to place more of the
responsibility of processing transactions on the customer. One way to do this is
through the use of a customer-integrated system (CIS) which places technology
in the hands of an organization’s customers and allows them to process their own
transactions (p. 22).
o
Enhance decision making:

IT can help upper management create alternate ways to do business, find
solutions to problems, or find the information they need to make a decision (p.
21).
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Technology to support decision making falls into two categories:
1. Those that help you analyze a situation and then that decision entirely up
to you.
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An example would be an executive information system (EIS)
which is a highly interactive IT system that allows you to first
view highly summarized information and then choose to see
more specific details, which may alert you to potential problems
or opportunities (p. 22).
2. Those that actually make some sort of recommendation concerning what
to do.
o
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the science of making machines
think and behave like humans (p. 23).
o
Improve Team Collaboration:
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IT can help to manage knowledge within an organization and to support and
facilitate communications between geographically dispersed teams.
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A collaborative system is a system that is designed specifically to improve
performance of teams by supporting the sharing and flow of information (p. 23).
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The software component of a collaboration system is groupware.
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One example would be Internet chat rooms. Another example would be software
that allows several people to edit a file at the same time.
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Create Business Partnerships and Alliances:
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IT can help you order from your business partners and suppliers more quickly. It
can help you to share information with your business partners..
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One popular example would be electronic data interchange (EDI). EDI is the
direct computer-to-computer transfer of information about transactions such as
invoices and purchase orders (p. 21).
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One aspect of EDI is electronic funds transfer (EFT) which allows for payment
without physically sending money.
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Enable Global Reach:
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IT can allow you to market your products and services in countries all over the
world and develop partnerships and alliances with other businesses around the
world.
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Facilitate Organizational Transformation:
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IT can allow you to stay competitive or enter into new markets and transform the
way your organization does its business.