Information Systems and Organizations

Information Systems

• Information systems consist of organizations, technology, and management.

Organizations

• Organizations are formal social structures that process resources from the environment to produce outputs.
• Organizations are formal legal entities with internal rules, procedures, and a social structure.
• Organizations balance rights, privileges, obligations, and responsibilities over time through conflict and resolution.

Forces Interacting to Shape Organizations

• Organizations are shaped by levels of management, design, and cultures.
• Subsystems are influenced by management levels and organizational cultures.
• Management levels include operations, middle management, and strategic management.
• Designing appropriate information systems requires understanding the organization.
• Successful design requires an understanding of organizational systems and subsystems.

Systems

• Systems are designed to achieve predetermined goals and objectives.
• Systems are composed of smaller, interrelated systems serving specialized functions.
• Specialized functions are reintegrated to form an effective organizational whole.
• Systems and subsystems are interrelated and interdependent.
• All systems process inputs from their environments, all systems are contained by boundaries separating them from their environments.
• Systems need feedback for planning and control.

Organizational Environments

• Organizational environments include community, economic, political, and legal factors.

Virtual Organizations

• Parts of virtual organizations are in different physical locations.
• Computer networks and technology bring virtual teams together.
• Virtual organizations reduce costs of physical facilities.
• Virtual organizations provide faster response to customer needs.
• Virtual organizations help employees fulfill familial obligations.

Systems Perspective

• A systems perspective analyzes the interrelatedness of subsystems to improve business.
• It's important for subsystem members to acknowledge their interdependence.
• Problems arise when managers prioritize their departments above others.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

• ERP is an integrated organizational information system.
• ERP software helps information flow between functional areas.
• ERP is typically purchased from software development companies like SAP or Oracle.
• ERP systems are moving towards cloud computing.
• Implementation issues must be overcome for ERP installation to be deemed a success, including: user acceptance, integration, upgrading functionality, reorganization of work life, reach, strategic repositioning of the company.
• ERP can impact design of employees' work, job skills, and strategic positioning.

Depicting Systems Graphically

• Systems can be depicted graphically using context-level data flow diagrams and entity-relationship models.

Context-Level Data Flow Diagrams

• Data flow diagrams graphically characterize business data processes and flows.
• Data flow diagrams focus on data flowing into and out of the system, and its processing.
• Data flow diagrams show the scope of the system.
• An diagrams non-technical nature enables user understanding and analysis agreement.
• Data flow diagrams depict system inputs, processes, and outputs.
• Basic symbols include a double square for external entities, arrows for data movement, rounded rectangles for processes, and open-ended rectangles for data stores.
• All diagrams may be used to represent departments, businesses, people, or machines.

Data Flow

• Data flow diagrams show movement of data with nouns and arrows, and represents data about a person, place, or thing.

Process

• Processes denote a change in or data transformation, name the system, major subsystem attach, for detailed, use the form verb-adjective-noun.

Data Store

• Data stores are repositories for data examination, addition, and retrieval of data and are given a unique reference number.
• Data Stores represents a database, computerized file, or filing cabinet.

Advantages of the Data Flow Approach

• Data flow provides freedom from committing to technical implementation too early, increased understanding of system/subsystem interrelatedness, communication of system knowledge to users, and analysis of the proposed system.

Entity-Relationship Model

• The model focuses on entities and their relationships within the organizational system.
• The model is another way to show the scope of a system, where an entity is a person, place, thing, or an event.
• The model may be made using diagramming tools such as Microsoft Visio.
• The entity is the basic building block for data models.
• List of Entities may include Employees, students, or customers, or Places such as Cities, offices or countries, while Events are things happen to entity.

Relationships in Entity-Relationship Model

• Relationships show how entities are connected, can be labelled, and have 3 types.
• The types include: one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many.
• Fundamental entities are real; associative join two entities, and attributive describe attributes.

Attributes

• Data attributes may be added to the diagram, which are some type of information about an entity and are nouns.
• Creating diagrams involves listing entities, choose key, identify primary, and confirm data.

Use Case Modeling

• Use case modeling is part of the Unified Modeling Language (UML).
• Use cases describe what a system does without describing how it works.
• Use case models partition how a system works into behaviors.
• Use case diagrams involve actors, use case symbols, and connecting lines.
• Actors refer to a role of a user and Use cases symbols indicate the task of the use case.
• Actors are divided into primary, who and is used to connect, or supporting.
• Every Use Case actor initiates an event, which then triggers a use case.

Relationships

• Relationship are used to communicate and include, extend and generalize actions.

Scope

• The System, project budge defines its scope.
• Actors are always outside the scope, communication lines defines the scope.
• Diagrams can created by reviewing, identifying, and the context-level data.
• Use Case help identify actor, action, and simplicity.

Developing the Use Case Scenarios

• The description of the use case involves identifying initiators, steps, and questions.
• The three case areas each, have a specific name,area, and type: has name, list, and type.
• Use case has white, kite,blue, indigo black to distinguish it,

Usecase Footer

• Footer has preconditions must be met.
• Postconditions or the state of the system after the use case
• Cases require and provide assumptions, guarantees, issues, risk, and priority.

Levels of Management

• The strategic level looks outward, makes decisions, and defines the organization.
• Managerial planning makes short-term decisions.
• Operations management makes decisions using rules.

Managerial Levels

• Managerial levels differ by organization structure, leadership style, technology, culture, and human interaction.

Collaborative Design

• Collaborative design occurs when external and internal stakeholders share processes to meet goals.
• It also gives power to those with strategic expertise.

Organizational Culture

• Organizations have cultures and subcultures, organizational culture is learned through verbal and nonverbal symbolism.

Technology Impact on Culture

• Culture is impacted by technology and communication applications.

Explore how information systems are comprised of organizations, technology, and management. Understand organizations as formal social structures processing resources. Learn about management levels (operations, middle, strategic) that shape organizational systems and subsystems.