Information Systems in Digital Age

Course Information

Lecturer: Seon Renville
Textbook: Laudon, K. C. & Laudon, J.P. Management Information Systems, Managing the Digital Firm, Chapter 3

Understand organizational features crucial for managers to build and use information systems effectively.
Analyze the impact of information systems on organizations.
Apply Porter’s competitive forces model to develop competitive strategies using information systems.
Utilize information systems to achieve competitive advantage through synergies, core competencies, and network-based strategies.
Address the challenges posed by strategic information systems.

Information systems are created by managers to benefit the firm.
Organizations must be receptive to the impacts of information systems to leverage new technologies.

An organization is a stable, formal social structure.
It acquires resources from the environment and processes them into outputs.
Key elements:
- Capital and labor: Primary production factors from the environment.
- Transformation: The organization converts inputs into products and services.
- Outputs: Products and services consumed by the environment in exchange for inputs.

Technical View: Focuses on how inputs are combined to create outputs, especially when technology changes.
Behavioral View: Emphasizes that implementing or changing information systems involves more than just technical adjustments.
- It affects the balance of rights, privileges, obligations, responsibilities, and sentiments within the organization.

Organizations become efficient over time through the development of routines.
Routines (standard operating procedures) are precise rules, procedures, and practices for handling expected situations.

Different positions within organizations lead to varying specialties, concerns, and perspectives.
This results in disagreements on resource, reward, and punishment distribution.
Political struggles, competition, and conflict are inherent in organizations.
Political resistance poses a major challenge to organizational change, especially in the development of new information systems.

Organizational culture strongly resists change, especially technological change.
Organizations tend to avoid changes to basic assumptions.
Technological changes that threaten cultural assumptions face significant resistance.
Sometimes, adopting a new technology that opposes the existing culture is necessary for progress, but the technology may be stalled until the culture adapts.

Organizations depend on their environment for resources and to supply goods and services.
There is a reciprocal relationship between organizations and their environments.
Organizations rely on the social and physical environment for financial and human resources.
They must comply with governmental regulations and respond to customers and competitors.
Organizations can also influence their environments.

Information systems help organizations:
- Perceive changes in their environments.
- Act on their environments.
They are crucial for environmental scanning, enabling managers to identify external changes.

Disruptive technologies radically alter the business landscape.
They often serve as substitutes that perform as well or better than existing products.
Examples:
- Car vs. horse-drawn carriage
- Word processor vs. typewriter
- Apple iPod vs. portable CD players
- Digital photography vs. film photography

Organizations have a structure or shape.
Mintzberg’s classification identifies five basic types of organizational structure.
The information systems and related problems within a firm often reflect its organizational structure.

Leadership styles vary (democratic vs. authoritarian).
Organizations differ in tasks and technology used.
Some perform routine tasks with formal rules, while others handle nonroutine tasks requiring judgment.