Communication of Complex Information - Literature review Example

?INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND THE ORGANISATIONS Introduction The use of technology and integrating it in the organisational strategy as well as in business processes is no longer just an element in a concerted effort to gain competitive advantage. Rather, it has become a necessity that is crucial for an organisations to survive in today’s highly globalized market. Technology, through the two engines of computing and communication, has particularly rendered the variables of distance and time obsolete because people can now communicate, interact and access all kinds of information from anywhere and anytime. Many people call this as the knowledge revolution, characterized by an international data highway that works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It has been far too long since people have acknowledged that the wired or networked world is revolutionizing business. This phenomenon has paved the way for organisations to better communicate with their market and all the stakeholders involved in the production and selling of goods and services. In a nutshell, companies use technology and electronic mediation not just to reach out to its consumers and suppliers but also to automate back-office tasks and industrial operations while pushing ahead with research and development. An important product of this technological development is the design of information systems or knowledge management systems where information are collected and stored to be used in decision making for overall organisational improvement (Stahl, p. 113). The efficacy of these systems is underpinned by the argument that they play a significant role in social processes and influences people, institutions and groups. Theoretical Framework Information system is not a novel concept. As a matter of fact, theorists cite it as an inherent feature of human development. More specifically, it is considered as one of the driving factors why societies develop. Wright (2007, pp.46) pointed out that information systems are already in existence even before the stylus or the clay tablet was invented. There is supposedly a mutually reinforcing relationship between society and culture, where the former creates the latter and the latter creates the former in the process (Wright, p.46). As human beings formed social bonds, a steady stream of symbols representing relationships, interactions, and ideas among other cultural and social artefacts emerge. These are the information systems of old. Wright identified folk taxonomies, mythological systems and preliterate symbolisms as examples of ancient information systems that led us to the brink of literate culture (p.46). Indeed, Headrick (2000, pp.32) argued that without it, Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species could not have been conceived because IS, as an organisational system, depicted society with its mediated information culture. The general theory is that information systems are formed when they organize themselves as new information emerge and assimilated (Wildermuth, 2008, pp.42). As demonstrated by Wright and the works of theorists such as Darwin, IS is inextricably linked to social development. It evolves with it as information flows, created and assimilated. Brown and Duguid (2000) stressed that information technology today would never be effective if it is not grounded on social life. Otherwise, IS, as an information-driven technology, is expected to lead in a so-called “tunnel vision”. The idea is that knowledge emerges out of numerous and interlinked variables such as those forces of content, context and community (Stahl, pp.113). These underpin the position that an information system has a sociological character, hence, must be treated as such. Based on the theories, it is easy to understand how modern information systems efficiently work in conditions that feature social processes. This is true in the case of organisations. In a bureaucracy, for instance, which is typified by rules and its unbending and rigid orientation, system orientation adapt and come to reflect the type of bureaucratic culture. An information system can easily be designed and be implemented, that which every process is carefully defined and each step, followed in equally rigid manner. Albers (2005, pp.169) pointed out that rules in this type of IS is defined for each piece of information, allowing for control and structure desired in the bureaucratic organisations. The argument that information systems, as cultural mechanisms, create society is best demonstrated in the manner by which people adapt to the system. According to Albers (pp.171), IS – as the main source of information – normally exerts strong influence over how the situation evolves since it drives how a person perceives a situation. The idea is that as people learn to use the system, they are changed in the process. As the system was designed to reinforce the bureaucratic processes, people who used it are coerced to participate and perpetuate them. Caputo (1988, pp.140) explained that the control of information, privacy and the management of information flow becomes the key to power since it is no longer about knowledge but rather knowledge about knowledge. The dynamics of information systems as mental environments guided by order, system and predictability becomes the domain of the bureaucratic managers in the technical field and those that control or influence their motivations. Google and Facebook are excellent examples of the manner by which technological bureaucratic hold power. They built information systems and exercised extreme control over it, dictating the manner by which users use, react and adapt to their contents. This development is reminiscent of the Frederick Winslow Taylor’s approach to management or more popularly known as Taylorism, which is a scientific approach to management that seeks to achieve optimum organisational performance and the maximization of industrial output. One of the most important tool within this framework was the time-and-motion-studies, which effected wrested control over knowledge of the productions process from the workers and placed it firmly in the control of the management (Giddens and Griffits, 2006, pp.745). The consequence is that the autonomy of employees was significantly reduced. Modern Information System The changing nature of information systems is particularly prominent today when there is a radical advancement in information technology. It allowed organisations to produce, store, and analyze information, helping people to make sense and conceptualize patterns or order in the cacophony of information present in a technological and information age. Beginning from the pioneering humungous and costly computer terminals of the past, to the emergence of personal computing in the 1980s, the current technology has rapidly became smaller, faster, powerful and cheap. To put this environment in context, there is the so-called Moore-s Law which states that computer processing chips double in power almost every 18 months, making computer more powerful than ever before (Davis, 2001, pp.407). To demonstrate substantial changes, one could merely compare a personal computer in the 1980s to a computer that has been recently released. In 1983, the computer would typically have 4 megahertz speed and 64 kb of RAM, complimented by 5.25-inch floppy drive for storage purposes. In a radical contrast, the 2012 user will settle for no less than the lightning speed of an Intel i3 or AMD A6 processors, with at least 64 gigabytes of storage and 4 gigabytes or more RAM, complemented by a DVD or USB flash drive. While there is no specific barometer for the average computer specifications, these are normal capabilities one will find in computers being sold in the market today. As previously mentioned, breakthroughs in information technology can make it easier for an organisations to record its operations and transactions, store them and access them easily and effectively using various database systems. This is very important because information – data that are fast and accessible anytime – can impact the manner by which an organisations develop products and services that give the best value to its clients. These capabilities had been demonstrated in the early 1980s. An account by Ralph Blanchard (2009), who is one of those pioneers that chose to adopt technology, depicted this excellently: I had purchased an Apple Macintosh computer in 1984 and had seen the potential firsthand. We used a Mac to create exploded views of XY’s instruments for our Dealer Service Manual. What would have taken an engineering draftsman days or even weeks was completed in a few hours with a computer. I was noticing more and more new businesses built around computer technology and the capabilities it had to store, manipulate and distribute information (Blanchard, pp.446). Today, the breakthroughs in computing and technology allowed for far more sophisticated equipment, softwares, applications and systems that made everything speedier and much more convenient compared to several decades ago. For example, Wal-Mart has created an application for its point-of-sale transaction wherein data are delivered real-time - as customers make purchases – to the decision makers. This is extremely important because finance executives can carry out analytics and make value-added decisions using profitability analysis and pricing models (Clements et al., 2004, pp.289). Wal-Mart even required its suppliers to hook-up to this point-of-sale system, electronically and automatically transacting new orders according to the inventory as reflected by the digitized sale activities. If this was done in the old system, the paperwork of the daily sales would be humongous, making the documentation, storage and analysis of the data labor intensive, requiring an army of employees while the process would take days if not weeks or months to complete. Automation, combined with electronic mediation has also allowed for faster response time to the needs and requirements of customers and suppliers Customer service is an excellent example. Digital technology has allowed for the 24/7 customer support that benefits consumers immensely. The operating principle is aligned with the enabling capacity of technology where systems, according to Stahl (pp.113), are produced to empower people so that they “act as they are able and amplify, transform, and extend their work to new or additional outcomes.” The above examples demonstrate how the workers are completely eliminated in the equation with regards to the information regarding business processes. Information systems, provided organisations complete control over the business operations and became more efficient as a consequence. Case Study: Database Marketing The database marketing, known as direct marketing is a marketing approach that analyses data obtained from customers and implementing the corresponding results (Blattberg et al., 2008). Blattberg elaborated that database marketing is about the use of customer databases in order to come up with effective acquisition, retention, and development of customers, which are the main components of marketing productivity. There are many organisations that try to make use of database marketing in order to achieve the desired productivity. For example, Dell Computer tries to improve its customer acquisition rate by implementing data analyses of its prospects (Dell, 2011). This could be implemented through acquiring information from its support strategies based on order and technicalities of the product. What is interesting in database marketing is that it does not merely provide the data in keeping consumers satisfied or in the attempts of organisations to add value to their products. Instead, they are further used to develop products and create demands. For example, an information system can identify the demographics of consumers in a specific location. The information system can help predict what products are needed based on the condition of such group of consumers. They are not necessarily what the consumers want but, rather, those that they actually need or previously thought never to need. An excellent example was how the Samsung Note smart phone was first introduced in the market. No one ever thought that such gigantic device could be used as a phone. But the managers of the organisations decided to manufacture the product based on their analysis of numerous variables produced in their information system. Today, the device is one of the most popular and iconic Samsung brands. Conclusion The efficacy of an information system for organisations is not merely based on the development of technology and the manner by which it empowers people to do tasks better and in less time and cost to resources. It amplifies productivity because it allows the organisations to have better control over the organisational processes. Social theories such as Taylorism and those that explain bureaucracy demonstrate that the system should be inherent in an organisations because it has social character. They explain how IS has been embedded in the social fabric and such perspective underscore how it is critical in the foundation and maintenance of a culture and, therefore, the means to make individuals (and in the case of organisations, employees) conform and assimilate so that the goals are efficiently realized. This aspect in information technology is not very democratic and could be a step back in terms of collaborative opportunities. But this is the case if all the stakeholders within the organisations are to be considered. The fact is the managerial control does not preclude collaboration because the technology is present. The only issue is whether the managerial bureaucracy will permit it. References Albers, M., 2005. Communication of Complex Information: User Goals and Information Needs for Dynamic Web Information. London: Routledge. Blanchard, R., 2009. Creating Wealth with a Small Business. New York: Cengage Learning. Blattberg, R. C., Kim, B., Kim, P., and Neslim, S. A., 2008. Database marketing: analysing and managing customers. New York: Springer. Brown, S., and Duguid, P., 2000. The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business. Caputo, R., 1988. Management Information Systems in Human Services: Implications for the Distribution of Authority and Decision Making. London: Routledge. Clements, S., Donnellan, M., and Read, C., 2004. CFO insights: achieving high performance through finance business process. Wiley and Sons. Davis, B.,2001. GIS: A Visual Approach. New York: Cengage Learning. Dell, 2011. ‘Company Website.’ [Online] Available at: http://www.dell.com/ [Accessed: 26 Nov. 2012]. Giddens, A. and Griffits, S., 2006. Sociology. 5th ed. Cambridge: Polity. Headrick, D., 2000. When Information Came of Age. Oxford UP. Stahl, G., 2010. Computer Support for Collaborative Learning. London: Routledge. Wildermuth, M., 2008. Print, Chaos, and Complexity. Associated University Press. Wright, A., 2007. Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages. 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