Difficult concepts

Question 1

What is the definition of Information Systems by Piccoli?

Answer 1

Formal, sociotechnical, organizational systems to collect process, store, and distribute information

Question 2

Why is Moore’s Law important for IM?

Answer 2

Causes: Self-fulfilling prophecy (it became a goal of chipmakers + the market demands this), Network effect (exponentially more nodes)
Effects: Autonomous (and predictable) growth, Unpredictability of the effects (chessboard metaphor)

Question 3

What is the mean idea of the article: The missing IS Research Agenda?

Answer 3

You shouldn’t change the infrastructure every year, because several applications run on it.
The infrastructure is stable when it can change, to keep up with innovations

Question 4

What are the types of databases?

Answer 4

1. Transactional (ERP,SAP)

2. Data warehouse (stores data to generate information for strategic decisions)

Question 5

How can IT play a role in competitive advantage, according to the 2008 article by Brynjolfsson and McAfee?

Answer 5

The article suggests that IT can influence competitive advantage when good management develops and delivers IT-supported process innovation

Question 6

What is BPM (Business process management)?

Answer 6

Supporting business processes using methods, techniques and software to design, enact, control and analyze operational processes involving humans, organizations, applications, documents or other sources of information