1.1. The value of information is the difference between the benefits realized from using that information and the costs of producing it. Would you, or any organization, ever produce information if its expected costs exceeded its benefits? If so, provide some examples. If not, why?
1.2. Can the characteristics of useful information listed in Table 1-1 be met simultaneously? Or does achieving one mean sacrificing another?
1.3. You and a few of your classmates decided to become entrepreneurs. You came up with a great idea for a new mobile phone application that you think will make lots of money. Your business plan won second place in a local competition, and you are using the $10,000 prize to support yourselves as you start your company.
a. Identify the key decisions you need to make to be successful entrepreneurs, the in-
formation you need to make them, and the business processes you will need to engage in.
b. Your company will need to exchange information with various external parties.
Identify the external parties, and specify the information received from and sent to
each of them.
1.4. How do an organization’s business processes and lines of business affect the design of its AIS? Give several examples of how differences among organizations are reflected in
their AIS.
1.5. Figure 1-4 shows that organizational culture and the design of an AIS influence one an other. What does this imply about the degree to which an innovative system developed by one company can be transferred to another company?
1.6. Figure 1-4 shows that developments in IT affect both an organization’s strategy and the design of its AIS. How can a company determine whether it is spending too much, too little, or just enough on IT?
1.7. Apply the value chain concept to S&S. Explain how it would perform the various primary and support activities.
1.8. IT enables organizations to easily collect large amounts of information about employees. Discuss the following issues:
a. To what extent should management monitor employees’ e-mail?
b. To what extent should management monitor which websites employees visit?
c. To what extent should management monitor employee performance by, for example, using software to track keystrokes per hour or some other unit of time? If such information is collected, how should it be used?
d. Should companies use software to electronically “shred” all traces of e-mail?
e. Under what circumstances and to whom is it appropriate for a company to distribute information it collects about the people who visit its website?
