MANAGEMENT INFORMATION

SYSTEMS
(MIS)

NANA ACKAAH - GYASI

 Course outline
This course provides the student with an introduction to need for management
information integration. The course covers basic concepts involved in thinking for a
strategy to integrate all processes in a management in in an effective manner and provide
a complete business solution.

Content

Management information systems overview-information-data and communication-

system-concept structure & elements-objectives and type.

Organization –scientific management and the classical school-human relation school-

structure information and culture

Management introduction and function-leadership, organizing and coordinating

Planning-decision making-element of control-control in organizations.

Information technology and MIS-computers and MIS – influence on MIS design.

Management Information Systems
- an overview
Initially in businesses and other organizations, internal reporting was made
manually and only periodically, as a by-product of the accounting system and with
some additional statistic(s), and gave limited and delayed information on
management performance. Previously, data had to be separated individually by the
people as per the requirement and necessity of the organization. Later, data was
distinguished from information, and so instead of the collection of mass of data,
important and to the point data that is needed by the organization was stored.

Earlier, business computers were mostly used for relatively simple operations such
as tracking sales or payroll data, often without much detail. Over time, these
applications became more complex and began to store increasing amount of
information while also interlinking with previously separate information systems. As
more and more data was stored and linked man began to analyze this information
into further detail, creating entire management reports from the raw, stored data.
The term "MIS" arose to describe these kinds of applications, which were developed to
provide managers with information about sales, inventories, and other data that would help
in managing the enterprise. Today, the term is used broadly in a number of contexts and
includes (but is not limited to): decision support systems, resource and people management
applications, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM),
Customer Relationship Management (CRM), project management and database retrieval
applications.

An 'MIS' is a planned system of the collection, processing, storage and dissemination of data
in the form of information needed to carry out the management functions
 Definitions of MIS
 The combination of human and computer –based resources that results in the
collection, storage, retrieval, communication and use of data for the purpose of
efficient management of operations and business planning.

 A system to convert data from internal and external sources into information and
to communicate that information, in an appropriate form, to managers at all levels
in all functions to enable them to make timely and effective decisions for planning,
directing and controlling the activities for which they are responsible.

 Management information system (MIS) is a system that provides information

needed to manage organizations effectively. Management information systems are
regarded to be a subset of the overall internal controls procedures in a business,
which cover the application of people, documents, technologies, and procedures
used by management to solve business problems.
 Decision focus of MIS

Data Information
MIS User
Decision
processes processes
Flow Flow
 BASIC TERMINOLOGYIES
• Management : is defined as a set of activities including planning and decision making,
organizing, controlling and leading, directed at an organization’s resources (human, financial and
information) with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an effective and efficient manner.

• Data: It can be defined as raw facts, figures or entities.

• Information: It can be defined as a processed data.

• A system: It is a grouping of people, objects or process aiming at a specific goal.

• Information System: is any combination of information technology and people's activities using
that technology to support operations, management, and decision-making.

• Information Technology: is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal,

pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of
computing and telecommunications.
  Why do we need information
1. To meet our day to day operations
2. To help control and monitor operations
3. To plan for short or long term

 What is Data Processing

It is the act of using a computer to manage and store information that has been
gathered for present or future use.
Data Processing System
Is a system which processes data which has been captured and encoded in a format
recognizable by the data processing system or has been created and stored by another
unit of an information processing system.
 Data vs. Information

Data refers to the lowest abstract or a raw input which when processed or arranged makes
meaningful output. It is the group or chunks which represent quantitative and qualitative
attributes pertaining to variables. Information is usually the processed outcome of data. More
specifically speaking, it is derived from data. Information is a concept and can be used in many
domains.

The frequency of the use of the words data and information are very high in our daily lives.
Depending on the context the meanings and use of these words differ. Both data and
information are types of knowledge or something used to attain knowledge. Though used
interchangeably, there are many differences between the meanings of these two words.

Information can be a mental stimulus, perception, representation, knowledge, or even an

instruction. The examples of data can be facts, analysis, or statistics. In computer terms,
symbols, characters, images, or numbers are data. These are the inputs for the system to give a
meaningful interpretation. In other words, data in a meaningful form is information.
 
Information can be explained as any kind of understanding or knowledge that can be exchanged
with people. It can be about facts, things, concepts, or anything relevant to the topic concerned.
 Management levels
The term “Levels of Management’ refers to a line of demarcation between various
managerial positions in an organization. The number of levels in management
increases when the size of the business and work force increases and vice versa.
The level of management determines a chain of command, the amount of authority
& status enjoyed by any managerial position. The levels of management can be
classified in three broad categories: -

 Top level / Administrative level

 Middle level / Executory

 Low level / Supervisory / Operative / First-line managers

Managers at all these levels perform different functions. The role of managers at all
the three levels is discussed below:
LEVELS OF MANAGEMENT T
Top Level of Management

It consists of board of directors, chief executive or managing director. The top management
is the ultimate source of authority and it manages goals and policies for an enterprise. It
devotes more time on planning and coordinating functions.
The role of the top management can be summarized as follows –

Top management lays down the objectives and broad policies of the enterprise.

It issues necessary instructions for preparation of department budgets, procedures,

schedules etc.

It prepares strategic plans & policies for the enterprise.

It appoints the executive for middle level i.e. departmental managers.

It controls & coordinates the activities of all the departments.

It is also responsible for maintaining a contact with the outside world.

It provides guidance and direction.

The top management is also responsible towards the shareholders for the performance of
the enterprise.
Middle Level of Management

The branch managers and departmental managers constitute middle level. They are
responsible to the top management for the functioning of their department. They devote
more time to organizational and directional functions. In small organization, there is only one
layer of middle level of management but in big enterprises, there may be senior and junior
middle level management. Their role can be emphasized as –

They execute the plans of the organization in accordance with the policies and directives of
the top management.

They make plans for the sub-units of the organization.

They participate in employment & training of lower level management.

They interpret and explain policies from top level management to lower level.

They are responsible for coordinating the activities within the division or department.

It also sends important reports and other important data to top level management.

They evaluate performance of junior managers.

They are also responsible for inspiring lower level managers towards better performance.
 Lower Level of Management

Lower level is also known as supervisory / operative level of management. It consists of

supervisors, foreman, section officers, superintendent etc. Supervisory management refers to
those executives whose work has to be largely with personal oversight and direction of operative
employees. In other words, they are concerned with direction and controlling function of
management. Their activities include –

 Assigning of jobs and tasks to various workers.

 They guide and instruct workers for day to day activities.
 They are responsible for the quality as well as quantity of production.
 They are also entrusted with the responsibility of maintaining good relation in the
organization.
 They communicate workers problems, suggestions, and recommendatory appeals etc to
the higher level and higher level goals and objectives to the workers.
 They help to solve the grievances of the workers.
 They supervise & guide the sub-ordinates.
 They are responsible for providing training to the workers.
 They arrange necessary materials, machines, tools etc for getting the things done.
 They prepare periodical reports about the performance of the workers.
 They ensure discipline in the enterprise.
 They motivate workers.
 They are the image builders of the enterprise because they are in direct contact with the
workers.
Influence of Management Level on Information
Source and Form

When designing information systems, it is important to consider the manager’s level.

Such levels can influence both the source of information and how it is presented.

Managers on the strategic level place greater emphasis on environmental information

than do managers on the lower levels. Managers on the operational control level

regard internal information as vital.

 Management function
The functions of management can be grouped into five areas:

 Planning

 Decision making

 Organizing and coordinating

 Leadership and motivation

 control
 Planning
Means looking ahead and chalking out future courses of action to be followed. It is a

preparatory step. It is a systematic activity which determines when, how and who is

going to perform a specific job. Planning is a detailed programme regarding future

courses of action. It is rightly said “Well plan is half done”. Therefore planning takes

into consideration available & prospective human and physical resources of the

organization so as to get effective co-ordination, contribution & perfect adjustment. It

is the basic management function which includes formulation of one or more detailed

plans to achieve optimum balance of needs or demands with the available resources.
 Decision Making

Decision making can be regarded as the mental processes resulting in the

selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Every decision

making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion

of choice.
 Organizing and Coordinating
Managers are responsible for organization of the company and this includes
organizing people and resources. Knowing how many employees are needed for
particular shifts can be critical to the success of a company. If those employees do not
have the necessary resources to complete their jobs, organization has not occurred.
Without an organized workplace, employees will see a manager as unprepared and
may lose respect for that particular manager’s supervisory techniques.

Coordinating is the act of making different people or things work together for a goal
or effect.
 Leadership and Motivation
Managing and leading are not the same activity. A manager manages employees;

this person makes sure that tasks are completed on time and policies are followed.

Employees typically follow managers because he or she is the supervisor and in-

charge of employees. Employees see a leader as someone that motivates them and

guides them to help meet the firm’s goals. In an ideal situation, the manager also

serves as the leader. Managers who want to lead effectively need to discover what

motivates their employees and inspire them to reach the company objectives.
 Controlling

The controlling function involves monitoring the firm’s performance to make sure

goals are being met. Managers need to pay attention to costs versus performance of

the organization. For example, if the company has a goal of increasing sales by 5%

over the next two months, the manager may check the progress toward the goal at

the end of month one. An effective manager will share this information with his or her

employees. This builds trust and a feeling of involvement for the employees.
 Control principles
This can either be the feedback loop or the feed-forward.

Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the

past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same event / phenomenon

(or the continuation / development of the original phenomenon) in the present or

future. When an event is part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or

loop, then the event is said to "feed back" into itself.

Feed-forward is a management and communication term, which refers to giving a pre-
feedback to a person or an organization from which you are expecting a feedback. It usually
involves giving a document for review and giving an ex post information on that document
which you have not already given

Feed-forward is a term describing an element or pathway within a control system which

passes a controlling signal from a source in the control system's external environment, often
a command signal from an external operator, to a load elsewhere in its external environment.
A control system which has only feed-forward behavior responds to its control signal in a pre-
defined way without responding to how the load reacts; it is in contrast with a system that
also has feedback, which adjusts the output to take account of how it affects the load, and
how the load itself may vary unpredictably; the load is considered to belong to the external
environment of the system.
 The influence of IT on MIS
Information technology (IT) is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal,
pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of
computing and telecommunications.

An 'MIS' is a planned system of the collection, processing, storage and dissemination of data in
the form of information needed to carry out the management functions.

• The advantages associated with computer-based managerial decision-making can be the

following:
 Response time is greatly reduced.
 Very large data are stored for information and decision-making.
 Accuracy of information is considerably improved, thereby improving the quality of the
decision.
 problems are handled more easily by using various operation research models.
 The cost involved in the decision-making process is reduced.
 More secrecy is observed as compared to manual file system.
 Other systems using IT

• Data Processing System: these are computer and electronic based systems for
recording , processing and reporting on day-to-day the activities of the organization.
Examples include ledger keeping, payroll, barcode reader, automatic teller machines.

• Office Support System: these systems seek provide management with day-to-day
assistance with the functions of the office.

• End User System: these systems seek provide management with direct assistance
with their work.
 LESSON 2
INFORMATION, DATA AND COMMUNICATION
 INFORMATION AND MANAGEMENT
• Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing
and delivery of information. Refusing to act until we have enough information is a
wise decision but refusing to act until we have all the information is probably
unrealistic.
• NOTE: the manager will never be able to get all the fact he should have. Most
decisions have to be based on incomplete knowledge – either because the
information is not available or it cost too much in time and money to get it.

• Relevant information is information which:

 increase knowledge
 Reduce uncertainty
 is usable for the intended purpose
 Information classifications
Information can be classified in many way which includes:

 By source

 By nature

 By level

 By time

 By frequency

 By use

 By form

 By occurrence
 Data and Information Defined

• Data are facts, events, transactions and so on which have been recorded. They are
the input raw materials from which information is produced.

• Information is data that have been processed in such a way as to be useful to the
recipient.
 Characteristics of Data
• The main characteristic of data is that (by definition), it is unprocessed, unorganized and
discrete.

• data, like information, can be qualitative (opinion-based, subjective) or quantitative

(measurement-based, objective). The opinions of 1000 people about a government policy
would be qualitative. Rainfall measurements would be quantitative.

• data can be detailed or sampled. Detailed data would facts about every occurrence of
something (e.g. the weight of every packet of sugar leaving the factory). Sampled data
would use typical measurements to represent the whole (e.g. weighing every 100th
packet of sugar)

• data can come in various forms: textual (e.g. names, addresses), numeric (e.g. heights,
ages), graphical (e.g. pictures of faces), aural (e.g. Morse Code dots and dashes), visual
(e.g. the individual frames of a movie are data that are processed by the brain into moving
picture information when the frames are shown at 24 frames per second; fingerprints).
 Primary and Secondary Data

• PRIMARY DATA is data that you collect yourself using such methods as:

 direct observation - lets you focus on details of importance to you; lets you see a
system in real rather than theoretical use (other faults are unlikely or trivial in
theory but quite real and annoying in practice).

 surveys - written surveys let you collect considerable quantities of detailed data.
You have to either trust the honesty of the people surveyed or build in self-
verifying questions (e.g. questions 9 and 24 ask basically the same thing but using
different words - different answers may indicate the surveyed person is being
inconsistent, dishonest or inattentive).
 Primary and Secondary Data (Cont.)

 interviews - slow, expensive, and they take people away from their regular jobs,
but they allow in-depth questioning and follow-up questions. They also show non-
verbal communication such as face-pulling, fidgeting, shrugging, hand gestures,
sarcastic expressions that add further meaning to spoken words. e.g. "I think it's a
GREAT system" could mean vastly different things depending on whether the
person was sneering at the time! A problem with interviews is that people might
say what they think the interviewer wants to hear; they might avoid being honestly
critical in case their jobs or reputation might suffer.

 logs (e.g. fault logs, error logs, complaint logs, transaction logs). Good, empirical,
objective data sources (usually, if they are used well). Can yield lots of valuable
data about system performance over time under different conditions.

Primary data can be relied on because you know where it came from and what was
done to it. It's like cooking something yourself. You know what went into it.
 Primary and Secondary Data (Cont.)

• SECONDARY DATA is collected from external sources such as:

 TV, radio, internet
 magazines, newspapers
 reviews
 research articles
 stories told by people you know.

• There's a lot more secondary data than primary data, and secondary data is a whole lot
cheaper and easier to acquire than primary data. The problem is that often the reliability,
accuracy and integrity of the data is uncertain. Who collected it? Can they be trusted? Did they
do any preprocessing of the data? Is it biased? How old is it? Where was it collected? Can the
data be verified, or does it have to be taken on faith?
• Often secondary data has been pre-processed to give totals or averages and the original details
are lost so you can't verify it by replicating the methods used by the original data collectors.
• In short, primary data is expensive and difficult to acquire, but it's trustworthy. Secondary data
is cheap and easy to collect, but must be treated with caution.
 Analogue vs. Digital data

• - data can be analogue (analog) or digital. Analogue data represents values with
physical quantities; digital data represents values numerically. Old analogue
computers worked by storing numbers as different strength electric currents: e.g.
to store the big number, a large current was used. To store a small number, a small
current was used.

• Home telephones are analogue devices: the louder you talk, the bigger the electric
charge that passes down the phone wire to the listener's phone. Digital phones, on
the other hand, encode your talk into numbers that represent the pitch and
volume of your voice into numbers, which are passed to the listener's phone and
decoded back into speech.
 Functions Performed by Information

• The reduction of uncertainty

• As an aid to monitoring and control

• As a memory supplement

• As an aid to simplification
 Characteristics of Good Information
Good information should have the following attributes:

 Relevant
 Accurate
 Complete
 Confidence in the source
 Communication to the right person
 Timing
 Detailed
 Good channel of communication
 Understandable
 Communication
• Communication is the activity of conveying information. Communication requires
a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be
present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of
communication; thus communication can occur across vast distances in time and
space. Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of
communicative commonality. The communication process is complete once the
receiver has understood the sender.
 Communication System/Process
The critical part of communication is the information, which is being transferred. The following
brief discussion explains the process of communication:
 Sender: The point from where the message originated.
 Message: Message is the essential content of communication or information intended to be
passed.
 Receiver: The person who has to take delivery of message is the receiver.
 Encoding: this is the way the message is written down or spoken in order to be able to
communicate with another person.
 Channel: The encoded message needs a vehicle or a medium to be transported from sender to
receiver.
 Decoding: The process of understanding by receiver of the message given by the sender.
 Noise: Noise is the causative factor for the message being miscommunicated or
misunderstood due to the problem either in the medium chosen or encoding or decoding or in
some stages of the process.
 Feedback: The sender would be communicating back to the sender his or her evaluation or
how he or she understood about each part of the message or word before the sender goes
further in acting on the message.
System Concepts – Structure and Elements
• The Systems Approach

• The systems approach considers two basic components: elements and processes.
ELEMENTS are measurable things that can be linked together. They are also called
objects, events, patterns, or structures. PROCESSES change elements from one form to
another. They may also be called activities, relations, or functions. In a system the
elements or processes are grouped in order to reduce the complexity of the system for
conceptual or applied purposes. Depending on the system's design, groups and the
interfaces between groups can be either elements or processes. Because elements or
processes are grouped, there is variation within each group. Understanding the nature
of this variation is central to the application of systems theory to problem-solving.

• Systems Approach to Management Defined

• The systems approach to management is based on general system theory – the theory
that says that to understand fully the operation of an entity, the entity must be viewed
as a system. This requires understanding the interdependence of its parts.
 Types of systems
• Closed system is one that is not influenced by, and does not interact with, its
environments. Such systems are mostly mechanical and have predetermined
motions or activities that must be performed regardless of the environment.

• Open system is one that is influenced by, and is continually interacting with, its
environment.