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Concept Note on Management Information System / INFORMATION SHARING SYSTEM
I. Background
Information systems are both technical and social in nature. Managers must understand the relationship between the technical components of an information system and the structure, functions and work culture of. Builders of information systems should consider management objectives and decision-making as well as the impact these systems will have on the well being of the people and society. In this chapter places information systems have to be placed in the context of organizational needs at various levels of management.
II. Information System
An information system can be defined technically as a set of interrelated component that collect (or retrieve), process, store, and distribute information to support decision making and control in an organization. In addition to supporting decision making, coordination, and control, information system may also help managers and workers analyze problems, visualize complex subjects, and create new product.
Information systems contain information about significant people, places and things within the organization or the environment surrounding it. By information we mean data that have been shaped into a form that is meaningful and useful to human beings.
Data, in contrast, are streams or raw facts representing events occurring in organizations or the physical environment before they have been organized and arranged into a form that people can understand and use.
Three activities constitute an information system to meet organizational needs for making decisions, controlling operations, analyzing problems, and creating new product and services. These activities are input, processing and output.
- Input captures or collects raw data from within the organization or from its external environment.
- Processing converts this raw input into a more meaningful form.
- Output transfers the processed information to the people or activities where it will be used.
Information also requires feedback, which is output that is returned to appropriate members of the organization to help them evaluate effects and impact or track flow of inputs and their transformation into outputs.
III. Technology
Information systems technology is one of many tools available for organizations, for coping with change. Information technology is the glue that holds the organization together. It is the instrument through which management controls and creates, and it is an arrow in the manager’s quiver.
Computer hardware is the physical equipment used for input, processing and output activities in an information system. It consists of the following: the computer processing unit; various input, output and storage devices; and physical media to link these devices together.
Computer software consists of the detailed programmed instruction that control and coordinate work of the computer hardware component in an information system.
Storage technology include both the physical media and storing data, such as magnetic or optical disk or tape, and the software governing the organization of data on these physical media, telecommunication technology, consisting of both physical device and software, links the various pieces of hardware and transfer data from one physical location to another.
IV. The Organization & Information System
Information systems are a part of organizations. The key elements of an organization are its people, structure and operating procedures, politics and culture. An organization coordinates work through a structured hierarchy and formal, standard operating procedure. The hierarchy arrange people in a pyramidal structure of rising authority and responsibility. The upper levels of the hierarchy consist of managerial, professional, and technical employees, while the lower levels consist of operational personnel.
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are formal rules for accomplishing tasks that have been developed over a long time. These rules guide employees in a variety of procedures, for writing an invoice to responding to complaining customers. Most procedures are formalized and written down, but many others are informal work practices. Many of a firm’s SOPs are incorporated into information systems.
Organizations require many different kinds of skills and people. In addition to managers, knowledge workers (such as engineers, architects, or scientists) design products or services, and data workers (such as secretaries, bookkeepers, or clerks) process the organization’s paperwork. Production or service workers (such as machinist, assemblers or packers) actually produce the products or service of the organization.
Each organization has a unique culture, or fundamental set of assumptions, values and ways of doing things. Parts of organization culture is always found embedded in its information systems.
All modern organizations are hierarchical, specialized and impartial. They use explicit standard operating procedures to maximize efficiency. All organizations have their own culture and politics arising from differences in interest groups. Organization differ in goal, group and served, social roles, leadership styles, incentives, surrounding environments, and task of performed. These differences create varying types of organizational structures. Computerized information systems are supported in organization by a “computer package” consisting of a formal organization unit information systems department, information specialist and computer technology. The roles of information systems and computer package in an organization have become increasingly critical to both daily operations and strategic operations. Organizations adopt information system for both external environmental reasons, so as to increase competition or to promote changes in government regulations, and for internal institutional reasons, such as to promote the values of interests of top management.
The impact of information systems on organizations is not unidirectional. Information systems and the organizations in which they are used interact with influence each other. The introduction of a new information system will affect the organizational structure, goals, work design, values, competition between interest groups, decision-making, and day-to-day behavior. At the same time, information system must be designed to serve the needs of important organizational groups and will be shaped by the structure, tasks, goals, culture, politics, and management of the organization. The power of the information systems to transform organizations radically by flattening organizational hierarchies has not yet been demonstrated for all types of organization.
Salient features of the organizations that must be addressed by information systems include organizational levels, organizational structure, types of task and decision, the nature of management support, and the sentiments and attitudes of workers who will be using the system. The organization’s history and external environment must be considered as well. Implementation of a new information system is often more difficult than anticipated because of organizational change requirements. Since information systems potentially change important organizational dimensions, including the structure, culture, power relationship, and work activities, there is often considerable resistance to new systems.
V. Approaches to MIS
Technical Approach
Technical approach to information system emphasizes mathematically based, normative models to study information system, as well as the physical technology and formal capabilities of these systems. The discipline that contribute to the technical approach are computer science, management science and operation research. Computer science is concerned with establishing theories of computability, methods of computation, and methods of efficient data storage and access. Management science emphasizes the development of models for decision-making and management practice. Operation research focuses on mathematical techniques for optimizing selected parameters of organizations such as transportation, inventory control, and transaction costs.
Behavioral Approach
The fast growing information system needs to be analysed in the context of behavioral problems and issues. Many behavioral problems, such as system utilization, implementation, and creative design, cannot be expressed with the normative models used in the technical approach. Other behavioral disciplines also play a major role. Sociologist focuses on the impact of information systems on groups, organizations, and society. Political science investigates the political impacts and uses of information systems. Psychology is concerned with individual responses to information systems and cognitive models of human reasoning.
The behavioral approach does not ignore technology. Indeed, information systems technology is often the stimulus for a behavior problem or issue. But the focus of this approach, generally is not on technical solutions; it concentrates rather on change in attitudes, management and organizational policy, and behavior.
Because there are different interests, specialization, and levels in an organization, there are different kinds of systems. No single system can provide all the information an organization need. The organization is divided into strategic, management, knowledge, and operational levels and then is further divided into functional areas such as sales and marketing, manufacturing, finance, accounting, and human resource. Systems are built to serve these different organizational interests.
MIS/Information Sharing System
Management Information Systems (MIS) serve the management level of the organization, providing managers with reports and, in some cases, with on-line access to the organization’s current performance and historical records. Typically, they are oriented almost exclusively to internal and not environmental or external events. MIS primarily serve the functions of planning, controlling and decision making at the management level. Generally, they are dependent on underlying Transaction Processing Systems (TPS) for their data.
MIS summarizes the report on the basic operations of the organisations. The basic transaction data form TPS are compressed and usually presented in long reports that are produced on a regular schedule.
MIS usually serves managers who are interested in weekly ,monthly and yearly results and not day-to-day activities. MIS addresses structured questions that are known well in advance. These systems are generally not flexible and have little analytical capability. For instance, one cannot instruct an MIS to “take the monthly sales figures by ZIP code and correlate with the Bureau of the Census estimates of income ZIP codes.” Firstly, a typical MIS contains only corporate internal data, not external data like the U.S. Census figures. Secondly, most MIS use simple routines such as summaries and comparisons, as opposed to sophisticated mathematical models or statistical techniques. Thirdly, data on sales by ZIP code would not be available on atypical MIS unless a user had informed the designer several years earlier that this arrangement of data might be useful.
Newer MIS would be more flexible and may include software that lets managers to structure their own reports and combine data from separate files and TPS. For instance, suppose a Director of an orgamisation wants to know pre-customized various reports of the different level, existing old MIS may do not have these features.
Need for Information Architecture
It is not enough for managers to be computer literate. Systems today require that a manager has an understanding of major technologies: data processing systems, telecommunication, and office technologies. As the scope of information systems widens, these previously separate island of technology must be closely coordinated. Managers today must know how to track, plan and manage the many Islands of technology in a way best suited to their organization. This system knowledge is important.
In addition, managers must know how to recognize organizational problems and find a systems solution. For this, knowledge of the organization is required. Together, systems knowledge and organizational understanding shape the organizational architecture. Information architecture is the particular form that information technology takes in an organization to achieve selected goals or functions. Information architecture includes the extent to which data and processing power are centralized and distributed. Managers increasingly play the critical role determining the information architecture of their organizations. There is no one else to do the job.
Although the computer systems base is typically operated by technical personnel, general management must decide how to allocate the resources to hardware, software and telecommunications. Increasingly, the top managers of systems and communications departments are also general managers. Resting upon the computer systems base are the major business applications. Since managers and employees directly interact with these systems, it is critical for the success of the organization that they meet business functional requirements now and in the future. In many organizations the major business applications provide unique competitive advantages. Failure to develop these systems can lead to business failure.
Designing and implementation of MIS for development projects have exposure to field realities of the diverse social situations in India. MIS has to be contribute to the achievement of the vision of reaching out of the poor.
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