Corporate Information Systems Management [antikvár]

Preface This book of text and cases is aimed at students and managers interested in contemporary information technology (IT)—computer communication and office systems—management. It is intended to communicate the relevant issues in effectively managing the information services activity. No assumptions are made in the book concerning the prior background of the readers with regard to the details of IT technology. It is, however, assumed that the reader has a basic background of either administrative experience or management training. Our purpose is to provide perspective and advice for coping with the information explosion. This expansion is best characterized by the doubling of the number of volumes in the Library of Congress from 1933 to 1966 and the doubling again from 1967 to 1979; the collection is expected to double a third time before the end of 1987. At the same time, acceleration in the growth of knowledge in science is stimulating a dramatic increase in the number of new products based on new technology. This growth, coupled with the increasing international nature of many businesses, puts an enormous burden on the individual to keep abreast of events. It is a sound scientific conjecture that a human can retain 25 billion characters of information.' However, it has proven impossible to retrieve and use everything one knows, let alone keep the knowledge up to date. As Peter Keen and Michael Scott-Morton^ have suggested, man-machine systems can assist the individual in coping with this information overload. We feel the broader issue is to help organizations adapt the new technology to better compete in their industry segments. Since the first edition of this book appeared, there has been a significant increase in awareness of how IT impacts a firm's competitiveness and how to search for competitive advantage. This edition of the book incorporates this material. Its treatment of organizational issues has also been modified to deal with the new challenges posed by the latest 'CarlSagan, The Dragons in Eden {New York: Random House, 1971). ^Peter F. Keen and Michael S. Scott-Morton, Decision Support Systems (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1978).