Information and Intelligence: Misunderstanding Management

Abstract

Many misunderstandings exist concerning management information systems and artificial intelligence. It is a misunderstanding, for instance, that ‘attaining competitive edge’, ‘strategic information’ and ‘executive information systems’ will lead to sustainable competitiveness. It is, furthermore, a misunderstanding that negative experiences with management information systems (MIS), decision support systems (DSS) and Expert Systems (ES) could be ignored. The key issue for achieving competitiveness is to improve the performance of information-workers in organizations via the exploitation of information technology. Information Management (IM) has to provide ways for task-improvement at the job-site of an individual or a group, using their knowledge and experience. It has to present better ways of task-coordination, meeting the demands of flexible organizations and at the same time flexible information systems. It has to realize information infrastructures between and above organizations. Management is facing a challenging design activity, requiring a lot of intelligence and MIS-understanding