IS524 Midterm Outline..
PART II – SHORT ANSWER
In general, for theoretical questions, you must base your answer on frameworks discussed in class, perhaps extending/synthesizing or applying them to new situations in the process. Answers need to be relevant to class discussions/powerpoints/notes i.e. please do not pull answers “off the top of your heads”.
Except in cases where intelligent speculation is required, answers need to fall within the knowledge base of the course.
1. In a car rental company, there is always a shortage of staff to rent cars to customers (i.e. there is a lot of demand). The company is organized along traditional lines. Is this an organizational problem? If so what type of organizational problem is it?
Yes it is an organizational problem – defining the structure means defining reporting relationships and job responsibilities. If this is not properly done, it causes problems such as above.
2. After having invented the cell phone, Motorola, a U.S. electronics manufacturer suffered $4.3b in losses between 2007-2009. Their cell phones did not evolve beyond that of a basic “keypad phone.” The basic problem was that Motorola was essentially an engineering company rather than a consumer products company. The cell phone division was spun off into Motorola mobility. This was acquired by Google in 2012 for $12.5 b along with a huge patent real estate. More recently Google sold off a major portion of this to Lenovo. What concepts discussed in the course does this mini-case exhibit?
Cellphone not evolving – lack of innovation (note that this was not discussed in the course except under 22nd century organization), it is a problem of strategy and lack of adaptation.
Was essentially an engineering company – illustrates that its values and resources (lack of marketing prowess) do not fit in well with consumer environment. (By the way, it used to sell the early phones to the army) Google acquisition/divestiture could be viewed as strategy and change in org. structure.
3. Identify the context i.e. topic and subtopic in which the term occurs and discuss briefly any two of the following concepts:
a) operations, b) organizational work other than clerical, manufacturing or managerial work, c) developer, d) Strategic impact
operations: occurs in the context of role of IS discussed in Intro to Corp. IS. It refers to the activities relating to selling, manufacturing, distribution and sometimes to even accounting and “back office” activity.
organizational work other than clerical, manufacturing or managerial work: This occurs in the context of roles of IS and classification of IS; both a part of Intro to Corp IS. It refers to professional or administrative work.
Developer: a professional who analyzes a system, develops specs and sometimes designs and codes as well. Occurs in the context of IS development which is part of Intro to Corp IS.
Strategic Impact: Occurs in org. concepts under strategy. It is the result of implementing a strategic environment. Impacts could be internal or external i.e. on the environment.
4. What is the role of management in an organization?
Assess trends and define strategy, find out the best way to perform a task and train employees
Design the organization – structure and responsibilities. Motivate and reward employees.
5. What happens to an organization if an ERP system is implemented?
-- Strategic impacts --
Operations: ERP can enhance operations such as order processing and warehousing
Product/Service: Better production quality possibly and possibly better customer service; on the other hand there may not be impacts here
Managerial Processes: Global view of orders, sales, inventory, budget etc. can lead to better D.M.
Administrative processes: can reduce paper work esp. in HR; makes it easier to prepare reports.
6. How can we analyze ‘order processing’ in an organization using systems perspective? Illustrate your answer.
Identify inputs, processes and outputs
Orders invoice
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7. A company uses information technology to support its manufacturing activity. What role of information systems is illustrated here? Explain.
Supporting operations since manufacturing is an operation.
8. A payroll system receives employee and salary information, calculates the pay for the current period, calculates the deductions and makes an electronic deposit. The users of this system are HR personnel. Electronic deposit is very convenient and timely for the company employees since they do not have to physically go to the bank. How can we view this from the work systems perspective?
Customers: HR personnel, employees
Products/services: deposit receipt if we can assume it
Processes: calculate pay, calculate deductions, calculate deposit amount
Information: employee and salary information
Technologies: payroll system including hardware (system would include technology components)
Participants: not 100% clear but HR personnel
Context: not clear
9. Under what technical conditions can the internet break down and stop working – note that the answer has to be relevant to class discussions and notes.
If all the hosts fail or if critical networks fail at once or if all key routers fail.
10. What factors affect the performance of a computer, identify four and briefly discuss.
Bus width: number of bus wires, the more the bus wires, the faster data can move around
Processor speed/clock speed: the faster the clock, the more the number of operations that can be performed.
RAM size: the larger the RAM, the less the need for I/O and therefore the faster the machine
Speed of Hard drive: Hard drive performance will improve the I/O time and therefore improves performance.
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