Week 9 - Chapter 6

Issues revolving around ethics and privacy are rampant in the twenty first century, and business entities are no strangers to dealing with such complicated subject matters. 

Ethics refers to "The moral principles which people use when making decisions", and throughout the centuries many "Ethical frameworks" have been invented and used as social standards for moral behavior (Such as the 'Utilitarian' approach or the 'Fairness' approach). Businesses also might have a "code of ethics" to help their employees make ethically sound decisions. Though at the end of the day what is considered "ethical" is a rather muddy grey zone of personal opinion and individual situations. 

Problems that have arisen due to the wide-spread use of the internet include privacy, accuracy, and accessibility issues. Electronic Surveillance has especially become common-place in the working environment and many countries participate in wide-world data collecting for their own personal use and potential gain. With how wide spread information technologies and systems are in the modern age, it is becoming more and more difficult to stay completely anonymous.

Gray, H., Issa, T., Pye, G., Troshani, I., Rainer, R. K., Prince, B., & Hugh, J. W. (2015). Management
information systems. Wiley.

Week 8 - Chapter 5

Business Intelligence (or simply BI) is a broad category of technological tools that help store data so people can access and analyze the information to make the most effective decisions. It is especially useful for managers when making critical decisions within their organization. In fact, there are lots of people who rely on BI in their daily occupations such as accountants, marketers, and human resource managers to name a few in a business context. Others that also gain from using BI are hospitals and retailers.

BI can be used for an array of tasks such as data analysis and data mining. And can be used to help with strategic planning and decision-making such as OLAP (online analytical processing) and DSS (decision-making systems). And while BI cannot help in every managerial situation (such as "unstructured" decision-making tasks), it is still an undeniable benefit to any entity of any size. From small start-ups to big corporations.

Gray, H., Issa, T., Pye, G., Troshani, I., Rainer, R. K., Prince, B., & Hugh, J. W. (2015). Management
information systems. Wiley.

 

 

 

 

Week 7 - Chapter 4

The internet (or the world wide web) has become a global sensation involving 200 countries in it's daily use and has changed the way we communicate and share information with each-other. The internet has also transformed the way businesses are run. So much so that now modern organizations simply cannot exist without it. 

Before the internet there were more formal (and slower) methods of postal services and fax machines transferring and receiving information from place to place, but thanks to the power of networking businesses can now almost keep in synchronized step with the economic world around them.

Search engines has made finding information about any and all topics very easy now, though that's not to say all the search results are of the same quality or will be as accurate. Since anybody can "share" information on the internet it's important to understand which are reliable, fact-based sources rather than just opinionated web posts.

Networking has also drastically evolved distance learning. Particularly E-learning with the heightened focus of improving online experience, making higher education possible for a larger audience of people throughout the world.

Gray, H., Issa, T., Pye, G., Troshani, I., Rainer, R. K., Prince, B., & Hugh, J. W. (2015). Management
information systems. Wiley.