Chapter 1 : Business Driven Technology

1) Compare management information systems (MIS) and information technology (IT).

Management information systems (MIS):

• A general name for the business function and academic discipline covering the application of people, technologies, and procedures to solve business problems.
• MIS is a business function similar to accounting, finance, operation and human resources.

Information technology (IT): 

• A field concerned with the use of technology in managing and processing information.
• Information technology is an important enabler of business success and innovation.

2) Describe the relationships among people, information technology and information.

• People use information technology to work with information.
  

3) Identify four different departments in a typical business and explain how technology helps them to work together.

• Sales
• Accounting
• Human resources
• Operations

Techology helps them to work together the organizations typically operate by functional areas or functional silos. Functional areas are interdependent.

4) Compare the 4 different types of organizational information cultures.

Information functional culture: 

- Employees use information as a means of exercising influence or power over others. For example, a manager in sales refuses to share information with marketing. This causes marketing to need the sales manager's input each time a new sales strategy is develop.

Information sharing culture:

- Employess across departments trust each other to use information (especially about problems and failures) to improve performance.

Information inquiring culture:

- Employees across departments search for information to better understand the future and align themselves with current trends and new directions.

Information discovery culture:
- Employees across departments are open to new insights about crisis and radical changes and seek ways to create competitive advantages.