Definitions
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Transaction Processing System
- Information systems supporting operational data processing by processing
business transactions.
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Management Reporting Systems - Information systems that support the management
of organizations by producing reports for specific time periods, designed
bor managers responsible for specific functions or processes in a firm.
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Decision Support Systems - Information systems expressly designed to support
individual and collective decision making by making it possible to apply
decision models to large collections of data.
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Executive Information Systems - Information systems that support the long
term, strategic view that senior executives and company boards need to
take of the business they are in charge of. Provide easy access to summarized
company data, often against a background of external information.
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Professional Support Systems - Information systems supporting the performance
of tasks specific to a given profession.
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Office Information Systems - Information systems that support and help
coordinate knowledge work in an office environment by handling documents
and messages in a variety of forms - text, data, image, and voice.
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Interoranizational Systems - Information systems that help several firms
share information in order to coordinate their work, collaborate on common
projects, or sell and buy products and services.
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Strategic Information Systems - Systems that assist a firm in realizing
its long term competitive goals and in seeking competitive advantage.
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Functional Structure - A structure in which people who perform similar
activities are placed together in formal units and thus the organization
is subdivided in accordance with the functions of the enterprise.
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Divisional Structure - A structure where the company divisions are formed
based on the groups of products or services they deliver, geographic region
they cover, or the customer segment they serve.
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Virtual Organization - Organization whose structure is to a large degree
crated by the use of information systems rather than with ownership or
lasting organization charts.
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Network Organization - An organization structure in which a firm becomes
the core of an extended virtual organization that includes long-term corporate
partnes, supplying goods and services to the core firm.
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Core Competencies - Specific capability that distinguishes the frim and
that is valued by the marketplace.
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Cluster Organization - Organizational structure in which the principle
work unis are the temporary and permanent teams of people who contribute
their distinct knowledge and experience.
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Intranet - Internal corporate network that deploys the Internet facilities,
primarily those of the World Wide Web.
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Virtual Workplace - Any place outside of the corporate office where a worker
can perform his or her tasks with the assistance of information technology
and, if desired, in commuinication and collaboration with other workers.
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Work Centered Analysis (WCA) Framework - A framework that analyzes attempts
to analyzes how information systems may be implemented most effectively
by focusing on the work that ultimately need to be done during a business
process.
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Telecommuting - Working in a virtual workplace, outside of the corporate
premises.
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Boundary Spanning Information Systems - Systems through which an organization
receives intelligence about its environment and provides computerized information
for its customers, suppliers, and the public at large.
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Organizational Memory - Means by which knowledge from the past exerts influence
on present organizationl activities,. Increasingly, elements of the organizational
memory are contained in the software and in the data and knowledge bases
of the corporate information systems.
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Business Process - A set of related tasks performed to achieve a defined
work product.
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Business Process Redesign - Rethinking and streamlining business processes
of a firm in order to produce business results. BPR is an improtant avenue
to achieving payoff from the use of information technology.
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Business Reengineering - Radical redesign of major business processes of
an organization, aiming at major gains in costs, quality, or time-to-market
for the firm's products.
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