Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the future indicate increasing numbers of global organizations, with increasingly more
communications occurring via information technology (Rollier, 2002).
ISSUES
Traditionally, information represented power (Smith, 1997, p. 11). Strategic and tactical
managers served as leaders by controlling information that they received by virtue of their
positions. They determined how to filter, organize, and disseminate it, and through these
decisions, framed the information for subordinates. These managers decided which reports
would go to which employees, what these reports would contain, and how they would look.
They decided which information to collect and maintain. They communicated why specific
information was important. Employees tended to follow the lead of management by attending
to information that was presented. Top leaders often hoarded information (Rosen, 1996).
However, in the process of moving from manual to computerized systems, many
managers began to depend on the advice of system developers regarding what information
could, in fact, be collected or maintained easily using computers. Efforts were made to alter
information in ways that computers could easily collect, store, process, and disseminate.
Programmers with little to no business background wrote programs to create managerial
reports.
Managers were willing to let these changes occur after seeing how effective and
efficient the early transaction processing systems were. These computer systems provided
them with more up-to-date information than had previously been possible. Managers could
see computer systems facilitating managerial functions, such as planning through comput-
erized budgets or controlling through exception reports. They did not necessarily realize that
computer systems would drastically alter organizational communications and provide the
same up-to-date information provided to them to their subordinates. Furthermore, they did
not realize that they were giving to system developers and programmers some of their power.
Certainly, programmers and analysts, during creation of information systems, felt little
incentive to maintain status quo wherever information was being hoarded. Managers could
not directly control information in the same ways they had controlled it manually. And,
perhaps because they did not see how they could control it, some managers quit feeling the
need to do so. For example, in
The New Leader: Bringing Creativity and Innovation to the
Workplace
, published in 1997, the author stated: “In the past we needed layers of managers
to control information. Now computers and information systems minimize the need…” (Smith,
1997, p. 52).
This statement could not be more incorrect. Computers and information systems
cannot
adequately take the place of managerial filtering and framing. Unfortunately, when computer
systems are expected to provide filters and frames, and it seems that they often are, the system
developers may not even realize it. They have likely not considered that the information
systems they are creating should do something more than simply generate numerous facts
and figures.
Systems analysts and programmers are not always well prepared to see things from a
variety of managerial perspectives. Programmers trained heavily in mathematics and pro-
gramming languages may lack big-picture organizational vision. They may have little
understanding of the strategic vision of top-level management. Consequently, the informa-
tion provided by systems they create may be limited to quantitative applications. They may
