Review Questions

Review Questions

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Why are information systems essential in business today? Describe four trends in the global business environment that have made information systems so important.
Describe the capabilities of a digital firm. Why are digital firms so powerful?
What is an information system? Distinguish between a computer, a computer program, and an information system. What is the difference between data and information?
What activities convert raw data to usable information in information systems? What is their relationship to feedback?
What is information systems literacy? How does it differ from computer literacy?
What are the organization, management, and technology dimensions of information systems?
Distinguish between a behavioral and a technical approach to information systems in terms of the questions asked and the answers provided. What major disciplines contribute to an understanding of information systems?
What is the relationship between an organization and its information systems? How has this relationship changed over time?
What are the Internet and the World Wide Web? How have they changed the role played by information systems in organizations?
Describe some of the major changes that information systems are bringing to organizations.
How are information systems changing the management process?
What is the relationship between the network revolution, the digital firm, electronic commerce, and electronic business?
What are interorganizational systems? Why are they becoming more important? How has Internet and Web technology affected these systems?
What do we mean by information architecture and information technology infrastructure? Why are they important concerns for managers?
What are the key management challenges involved in building, operating, and maintaining information systems today?

Chapter 2

Identify and describe the four levels of the organizational hierarchy. What types of information systems serve each level?
List and briefly describe the major types of systems in organizations.
What are the five types of TPS in business organizations? What functions do they perform? Give examples of each.
Describe the functions performed by knowledge work and office systems and some typical applications of each.
What are the characteristics of MIS? How do MIS differ from TPS? From DSS
What are the characteristics of DSS? How do they differ from those of ESS
Describe the relationship between TPS, office systems, KWS, MIS, DSS, and ESS.
List and describe the information systems serving each of the major functional areas of a business.
What is a business process? Give two examples of processes for functional areas of the business and one example of a cross-functional process.
What is customer relationship management? Why is it so important to businesses? How do information systems facilitate customer relationship management?
What is supply chain management? What activities does it comprise? Why is it so important to businesses?
How do information systems facilitate supply chain management
What is collaborative commerce? How can organizations benefit from it
How can organizations benefit from participating in private industrial networks
What are enterprise systems? How do they change the way an organization works
What are the benefits and challenges of implementing enterprise systems
Describe the four major types of global business organization and the system configuration that is most appropriate for supporting each type.

Chapter 3

What is an organization? Compare the technical definition of organizations with the behavioral definition.
What features do all organizations have in common? In what ways can organizations differ?
How are information technology services delivered in organizations? Describe the role played by programmers, systems analysts, information systems managers, and the chief information officer (CIO).
Describe the major economic theories that help explain how information systems affect organizations.
Describe the major behavioral theories that help explain how information systems affect organizations.
Why is there considerable organizational resistance to the introduction of information systems?
Compare the descriptions of managerial behavior in the classical and behavioral models.
What specific managerial roles can information systems support? Where are information systems particularly strong in supporting managers, and where are they weak?
What are the four stages of decision making described by Simon?
Compare individual and organizational models of decision making.
What is the impact of the Internet on organizations and the process of management?
What is a strategic information system? What is the difference between a strategic information system and a strategic-level system?
Describe appropriate models for analyzing strategy at the business level, and the types of strategies and information systems that can be used to compete at this level.
Describe appropriate strategies for the firm level and how information systems can help companies compete at this level.
How can the competitive forces model, information partnerships, and network economics be used to identify strategies and system opportunities at the industry level?
How have the value chain and competitive forces models changed as a result of the Internet and the emergence of digital firms?
Why are strategic information systems difficult to build?

Chapter 4

What are the advantages of using the Internet as the infrastructure for electronic commerce and electronic business?
How is the Internet changing the economics of information and business models?
Name and describe six Internet business models for electronic commerce. Distinguish between a pure-play Internet business model and a clicks-and-mortar business model.
Name and describe the various categories of electronic commerce.
How can the Internet facilitate sales and marketing to individual customers? Describe the role played by Web personalization.
How can the Internet help provide customer service?
How can Internet technology support business-to-business electronic commerce?
What are net markeplaces? Why do they represent an important business model for B2B e-commerce? How do they differ from private industrial networks?
Name and describe the principal electronic payment systems used on the Internet.
Why are intranets so useful for electronic business?
How can intranets support organizational collaboration?
Describe the uses of intranets for electronic business in sales and marketing, human resources, finance and accounting, and manufacturing.
How can companies use Internet technology for supply chain management?
Describe the management challenges posed by electronic commerce and electronic business on the Internet.
What is channel conflict? Why is it becoming a growing problem in electronic commerce?

Chapter 5

In what ways are ethical, social, and political issues connected? Give some examples.
What are the key technological trends that heighten ethical concerns?
What are the differences between responsibility, accountability, and liability?
What are the five steps in an ethical analysis?
Identify and describe six ethical principles.
What is a professional code of conduct?
What are meant by "privacy" and "fair information practices"?
How is the Internet challenging the protection of individual privacy?
What role can informed consent, legislation, industry self-regulation, and technology tools play in protecting individual privacy of Internet users?
What are the three different regimes that protect intellectual property rights? What challenges to intellectual property rights are posed by the Internet?
Why is it so difficult to hold software services liable for failure or injury?
What is the most common cause of system quality problems?
Name and describe four "quality of life" impacts of computers and information systems.
What is technostress, and how would you identify it?
Name three management actions that could reduce RSI injuries.

Chapter 6

What are the components of a contemporary computer system?
Distinguish between a bit and a byte, and describe how information is stored in primary memory.
Name the major components of the CPU and the function of each.
Name and describe the factors affecting a microprocessor's speed and performance.
Distinguish between serial, parallel, and massively parallel processing.
List the most important secondary storage media. What are the strengths and limitations of each?
List and describe the major computer input and output devices.
What is the difference between batch and on-line processing? Diagram the difference.
What is multimedia? What technologies are involved?
What is the difference between a mainframe, a midrange computer, a server, and a PC? Between a PC and a workstation?
Compare the client/server, network computer, and peer-to-peer models of computing.
What are the major types of software? How do they differ in terms of users and uses?
What is the operating system of a computer? What does it do? What role do multiprogramming, virtual storage, time sharing, and multiprocessing play in the operation of an information system?
List and describe the major PC operating systems.
List and describe the major application programming languages. How do they differ from fourth-generation languages?
Name and describe the most important PC software tools.
Name and describe the kinds of software that can be used for enterprise integration.
What is object-oriented programming? How does it differ from conventional software development?
What are Java, HTML, and XML? Compare their capabilities. Why are they becoming important?
List and describe the principal issues in managing hardware and software assets.

Chapter 7

Why is file management important for overall system performance?
List and describe each of the components in the data hierarchy.
Define and explain the significance of entities, attributes, and key fields.
List and describe some of the problems of the traditional file environment.
Define a database and a database management system.
Name and briefly describe the three components of a DBMS.
What is the difference between a logical and a physical view of data?
List some benefits of a DBMS.
Describe the principal types of databases and the advantages and disadvantages of each.
What is normalization? How is it related to the features of a well-designed relational database?
What is a distributed database, and what are the two main ways of distributing data?
What are the four key organizational elements of a database environment? Describe each briefly.
Describe the capabilities of on-line analytical processing (OLAP) and datamining.
What is a data warehouse? How can it benefit organizations?
What is a hypermedia database? How does it differ from a traditional database? How is it used for the Web?
How can users access information from a company's internal databases via the Web?

Chapter 8

What is the significance of telecommunications deregulation for managers and organizations?
What is a telecommunications system? What are the principal functions of all telecommunications systems?
Name and briefly describe each of the components of a telecommunications system.
Distinguish between an analog and a digital signal.
Name the different types of telecommunications transmission media and compare them in terms of speed and cost.
Name and describe the technologies used for wireless transmission.
What are optical networks? Why are they becoming important?
What is the relationship between bandwidth and a channel's transmission capacity?
Name and briefly describe the different kinds of communications processors.
Name and briefly describe the three principal network topologies.
Distinguish between a PBX and a LAN.
What are the components of a typical LAN? What are the functions of each component?
List and describe the various network services.
Distinguish between a WAN and a VAN.
Define the following: modem, baud, protocol, converged network, and broadband.
Name and describe the telecommunications applications that can support electronic commerce and electronic business.

Chapter 9

What are the features of the new information technology infrastructure?
Why is connectivity so important for the digital firm? List and describe the major connectivity standards for networking and the Internet.
What is the Internet? List and describe alternative ways of accessing the Internet.
List and describe the principal Internet capabilities.
What are Internet2 and Next Generation Internet (NGI)? How does the next generation Internet differ from the first-generation Internet? What benefits does it provide?
Why is the World Wide Web so useful for individuals and businesses?
List and describe alternative ways of locating information on the Web.
What are intranets and extranets? How do they differ from the Web?
What is the Wireless Web? How does it differ from the conventional Web?
List and describe the types of m-commerce services and applications supported by the Wireless Web.
Compare the WAP and I-mode Wireless Web standards.
Describe the organizational benefits of Internet and Web technology.
List and describe the principal technologies for supporting electronic commerce and electronic business.
Under what conditions should firms consider Web hosting services?
Describe five problems posed by the new IT infrastructure.
Describe some solutions to the problems posed by the new IT infrastructure.

Chapter 10

What is knowledge management? List and briefly describe the information systems that support it and the kind of information technology (IT) infrastructure it requires.
How does knowledge management promote organizational learning?
Describe the roles of the office in organizations. What are the major activities that take place in offices?
What are the principal types of information systems that support information worker activities in the office?
What are the generic requirements of knowledge work systems? Why?
Describe how the following systems support knowledge work: computer-aided design (CAD), virtual reality, and investment workstations.
How does groupware support information work? Describe its capabilities and Internet and intranet capabilities for collaborative work.
What is artificial intelligence? Why is it of interest to business?
What is the difference between artificial intelligence and natural or human intelligence?
Define an expert system and describe how it can help organizations use their knowledge assets.
Define and describe the role of the following in expert systems: rule base, frames, inference engine.
What is case-based reasoning? How does it differ from an expert system?
Describe three problems of expert systems.
Describe a neural network. With what kinds of tasks would a neural network excel?
Define and describe fuzzy logic. For what kinds of applications is it suited?
What are genetic algorithms? How can they help organizations solve problems? For what kinds of problems are they suited?
What are intelligent agents? How can they be used to benefit businesses?

Chapter 11

What is a decision-support system (DSS)? How does it differ from a management information system (MIS)?
How can a DSS support unstructured or semistructured decision-making?
What is the difference between a data-driven DSS and a model-driven DSS? Give examples.
What are the three basic components of a DSS? Briefly describe each.
How can DSS help firms with supply chain management and customer relationship management?
What is a geographic information system (GIS)? How can it support decision-making?
What is a customer decision-support system? How can the Internet be used for this purpose?
What is a group decision-support system (GDSS)? How does it differ from a DSS?
What are the underlying problems in group decision-making that have led to the development of GDSS?
Describe the three elements of a GDSS.
Name and describe five GDSS software tools.
What is an electronic meeting system (EMS)? Describe its capabilities.
For each of the underlying problems in group decision-making referred to in question 9, describe one or two ways GDSS can contribute to a solution.
Define and describe the capabilities of an executive support system (ESS).
How can the Internet and enterprise systems provide capabilities for executive support systems?
What are the benefits of ESS? How do these systems enhance managerial decision-making?

Chapter 12

Why can an information system be considered planned organizational change?
What are the major categories of an information systems plan?
How can enterprise analysis and critical success factors be used to establish organization-wide information system requirements?
Describe each of the four kinds of organizational change that can be promoted with information technology.
What is business process reengineering? What steps are required to make it effective?
What is the difference between systems analysis and systems design? What activities do they comprise?
What are information requirements? Why are they difficult to determine correctly?
Why is the testing stage of systems development so important? Name and describe the three stages of testing for an information system.
What role do programming, conversion, production, and maintenance play in systems development?
What is the traditional systems lifecycle? Describe each of its steps and its advantages and disadvantages for system building.
What do we mean by information system prototyping? What are its benefits and limitations? List and describe the steps in the prototyping process.
What is an application software package? What are the advantages and disadvantages of developing information systems based on software packages?
What do we mean by end-user development? What are its advantages and disadvantages? Name some policies and procedures for managing end-user development.
What is outsourcing? Under what circumstances should it be used for building information systems?
What is the difference between object-oriented software development and traditional software development? What are the advantages of using object-oriented software development in building systems?
What is rapid application development (RAD)? How can it help system builders?
What are Web services? How can they help firms build and enhance their information systems?

Chapter 13

Name and describe the principal capital budgeting methods used to evaluate information system projects.
What are the limitations of financial models for establishing the value of information systems?
Describe how portfolio analysis and scoring models can be used to establish the worth of systems.
How can real options pricing models be used to help evaluate information technology investments?
Have information systems enhanced productivity in businesses? Explain your answer.
Why do builders of new information systems need to address change management?
What kinds of problems provide evidence of information system failure?
Why is it necessary to understand the concept of implementation when managing the organizational change surrounding a new information system?
What are the major causes of implementation success or failure?
What is the userdesigner communications gap? What kinds of implementation problems can it create?
Why is there such a high failure rate among enterprise resource planning (ERP) and business process reengineering (BPR) projects? Why are customer relationship management and supply chain management systems often difficult to implement?
What role do information systems play in the success or failure of mergers and acquisitions?
What are the challenges of implementing global systems?
What dimensions influence the level of risk in each systems development project?
What project management techniques can be used to control project risk?
What strategies can be used to overcome user resistance to systems development projects?
What organizational considerations should be addressed by information system design?
What strategies can be used to make implementation of global systems more succes

Chapter 14

Why are computer systems more vulnerable than manual systems to destruction, fraud, error, and misuse? Name some of the key areas where systems are most vulnerable.
Name some features of on-line information systems that make them difficult to control.
How can bad software and data quality affect system performance and reliability? Describe two software quality problems.
What are controls? Distinguish between general controls and application controls.
Name and describe the principal general and application controls for computerized systems.
What is security? List and describe controls that promote security for computer hardware, computer networks, computer software, and computerized data.
What special security measures must be taken by organizations linking to the Internet?
Distinguish between fault-tolerant and high-availability computing.
Describe the role of firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and encryption systems in promoting security.
Why are digital signatures and digital certificates important for electronic commerce?
What is the function of risk assessment?
How does MIS auditing enhance the control process?
Name and describe four software quality assurance techniques.
What is structured analysis? What is the role of the data flow diagram in structured analysis?
How is structured design related to structured programming? How can both promote software quality?
Why are data quality audits and data cleansing essential?

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