Lecture 5: Managers and Their Information Needs

1. Lecture 5: Managers and Their Information Needs • Traditional organizational pyramid • Characteristics of information flow • Types of data • Nature of managerial work • Ethical and societal issues

2. Traditional organizational pyramid • Clerical and shop floor workers • Operational management • Tactical Management • Strategic Management (pp. 361-362)

3. Characteristics of information flow • Degree of decision making • Time span • Data range

4. Types of data • Descriptive v.s. inferential • Internal v.s. external • Structured v.s. unstructured • Quantitative v.s. qualitative • Reliability v.s. Validity

5. Nature of managerial work • Planning • Controlling • Decision making • Managing by exception • Leading (pp.368-371 )

6. Ethical and societal issues • Electrical monitoring of employees • 74% of major firms record and monitor daily activities on the job • 27 % of the companies do fire people for misuse of telecomm. equipment • From employers’ position • From employee’s position

7. Trends in organizational structure • IT replace middle managers? • How about the impact on strategic and operational managers?

8. Characteristics of effective information • Tabular and graphic representation • Online analytical processing • Dynamic representation (pp. 377-381)

9. Managers and IT systems • Transaction processing systems • Decision support systems • Executive information systems • Customer relationship management systems (pp. 381-384)

10. Review questions • Explain the Traditional organizational pyramid • Explain the characteristics of information flow • What are the different types of data • Explain the nature of managerial work • Discuss the ethical and societal issues

11. Homework#5 • Study the Secor Books case on pp.358-359. Answer the question no.2 on p. 389. You are Secor CEO Mona Cortez… • One-page report