Ch. 13: Communication and Information Technology Management

Question 1

What is data?

Answer 1

Raw, unsummarized, and unanalyzed facts.

Question 2

What is information?

Answer 2

Data that are organized in a meaningful fashion.

Question 3

What is real-time information?

Answer 3

Frequently updated information that reflects current conditions.

Question 4

What is information technology (IT)?

Answer 4

The set of methods or techniques for acquiring, organizing, storing, manipulating, and transmitting information.

Question 5

What is a management information system (MIS)?

Answer 5

A specific form of IT that managers utilize to generate
the specific, detailed information they need
to perform their roles effectively.

Question 6

What is communication?

Answer 6

The sharing of information between two or more individuals or groups to reach a common understanding.

Question 7

What is a sender?

Answer 7

The person or group wishing to share information.

Question 8

What is a message?

Answer 8

The information that a sender wants to share.

Question 9

What is encoding?

Answer 9

Translating a message into understandable symbols or language.

Question 10

What is noise?

Answer 10

Anything that hampers any stage of the communication process.

Question 11

What is a receiver?

Answer 11

The person or group for which a message is intended.

Question 12

What is a medium?

Answer 12

The pathway through which an encoded message is transmitted to a receiver.

Question 13

What is decoding?

Answer 13

Interpreting and trying to make sense of a message.

Question 14

What is verbal communication?

Answer 14

The encoding of messages into words, either written or spoken.

Question 15

What is nonverbal communication?

Answer 15

The encoding of messages by means of facial expressions, body language, and styles of dress.

Question 16

What is information richness?

Answer 16

The amount of information that a communication medium can carry and the extent to which the medium enables the sender and receiver to reach a common understanding.

Question 17

What is management by wandering around?

Answer 17

A face-to-face communication technique in which a manager walks around a work area and
talks informally with employees about issues and concerns.

Question 18

What is information overload?

Answer 18

A superabundance of information that increases the likelihood that important information is ignored or overlooked and tangential information receives attention.

Question 19

What is a product life cycle?

Answer 19

The way demand for a product changes in a predictable pattern over time.

Question 20

What are the four stages of the product life cycle?

Answer 20

1) Embryonic phase: A product has yet to gain widespread acceptance; customers are unsure what a product, such as a new smartphone, has to offer, and demand for it is minimal.
2) Growth stage: Many consumers are entering the market and buying the product for the first time, and demand increases rapidly.
3) Maturity stage: Begins when market demand peaks because most customers have already bought the product (there are relatively few first- time buyers left). At this stage, demand is typically replacement demand.
4) Decline stage: Begins this typically occurs when advancing IT leads to the development of a more advanced product, making the old one obsolete, such as when the iPod destroyed Sony’s Walkman franchise.

Question 21

What is information distortion?

Answer 21

Changes in meaning that occur as information passes through a series of senders and receivers.

Question 22

What is a transaction-processing system?

Answer 22

A management information system designed to handle large volumes of routine, recurring transactions.

Question 23

What is operations information system?

Answer 23

A management information system
that gathers, organizes, and summarizes comprehensive data in a form that managers can use in their nonroutine coordinating, controlling, and decision-making tasks.

Question 24

What is a decision support system?

Answer 24

An interactive computer-based management information system with model- building capability
that managers can use when they must make nonroutine decisions.

Question 25

What is an expert system?

Answer 25

A management information system
that employs human knowledge captured
in a computer to solve problems that ordinarily require human expertise.