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Management Information Systems: Appreciation and Involvement
Management Information Systems: Appreciation and Involvement
Management Information Systems: Appreciation and Involvement
Introduction
In a well-known critique of computer-based management information systems
("MIS's"), John Dearden presents an archetypical design vision:
The latest vogue in computer information systems is the so-called real-time
management infonnation system. The general idea is to have in each ex-
ecutive's office a remote computer terminal which is connected to a large-
scale computer with a data bank containing all of the relevant information in
the company. The data bank, ufxlated continuously, can be "interrogated"
by the manager at any time. Answers to questions are immediately flashed
on a screen in his office. AII^;edly, a real-time management information sys-
tem enable the manager to obtain complete and up-to-the-Hunute informa-
tion about everything that is happening within the company. [8, p. 123]
Widrapread failure in the implementation of such MIS "ideals" has been reported
([2], [9]). A contributing factor to these failures, in the author's opinion, is the common
assumption by designers that a mani^r need not understand how his information
sjrstem works, only how to xise it.' Otherwise put, the comnwon mistaken assumption
is that managerial (user) understanding is separable from design understanding.
The implications of this a»umptbn are particularly interestii^ for MIS's of the
file interrogation type, systems which rely upon wi infonnation "demand" in order
to achieve utilization. In the author's experience, this demand is realized only to the
extent that nuuiagers ineobe themselves in MIS design uid implementation, and thus
develop an understanding and appreciation of the "whole system."' A mans^r's
understanding and appreciation of the MIS is a necessary condition for meaningful
MIS inquiry.
That management should be "involved" in MIS development is a popular wisdom:
The key to system success is total involvement of the users; trite to be sure,
fundamental without a doubt. [13, p. 67]
Research results exist, furtihermore, to support this notion ([10], {11]).
Unfortunately, what is meant by "involvement" is rarely clem*, and nothing has
* Proeessed by Professor Richard O. Mason, Departmental Editor for Management M>d Be-
havioral Science; received May 16, 1972, revised March 30, 1073. This paper has been with the
author a month for revision.
' Hie assumption was originally presented uid criticised by Ackoff [2], utd discussed sub-
sequently by Riqtpaport (14). See idso Swuison [16].
' The concept of the "whole system" and Its relationship to the problem of inquiry has been
articulated by Churchman f6], (7].
178
t, tiw Iwm«to«( lfuii««Mnt Baiaaw
MANAQBMENT INFORMATION S Y S T E M B : APPBESCIATION AND INVOLVEMENT 179
* A more formal definition of involvement is contained in the report [16] on which this article
is based. This definition is itself derived from the work of Ackoff and Churchman [1].
* The uae of the term "appreciation" in this context is my own idea. For a similar concept of
'appreciation" see VIckers [17].
180 E. BtTBTON SWAKSON
bwing model:
coproduces coproduces Inquiry
A Priori MIS
^ » Involvement
Involvement Appreciation coproduces
• Noi an IBM product, but a "Type III" program at the time of this study. For details, see
the documentation for contributed program 360D-06.7.009, published by the IBM Corporation.
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS: APPRECIATION AND INVOLVEMENT 181
• IBM 2741 typewriter tenninals and 2260 cathode ray tube (CRT) display stations.
182 B, BtmTON SWAN80N
objective of "satisfying the user's needs." That is, the manager is presumed to initiate
changes in the interest of the user group of which he is a member.
Lastly, it is presupposed that:
(iii) An indicator of the MIS appreciation of a manager is his verbal evaluation of
MIS inquiry as a means of informing himself. An index of his MIS appreciation is an
average of these evaluations.
Thus, a manager who judges his MIS reports to be "timely" might be assumed to
indicate more appreciation than one who judges them "untimely." And an index
could be constructed from a set of judgments such as these.
The actual measures used were operationalized by means of the instruments utilised
n data collection. The MIS/360 Inquiry History File was used as the source of indi-
cators of inquiry involvement. A research questionnaire was constructed to obtain
indicators of MIS appreciation and o priori involvement.
The Inquiry History File was monitored over a period of almost four months, and
a complete record of system use during 30 consecutive working days preceding the
administration of the questionnaire was used to measure the inquiry involvement of
the MIS users. An inquirer was judged to be "active" on a given working day if he
entered one or more queries. The index of his inquiry involvement was then the rela-
tive frequency of these active days during the 30 days sampled. This measure may
thus be interpreted as indicating the "probability" that the client will use the terminal
(i.e. enter at least one query) on a given working day.
The measure of MIS appreciation was based on a set of 16 questionnaire items
such as the following:
For me, the reports are
I 1 I I I I I I
very somewhat neither somewhat very don't
timely timely timely untimely untimely know
0.9 0.7 nor 0.3 0.1 0.0
untimely
0.5
For me, the average on-line response to an MIS/360 terminal inquiry is
I I I ! I I I 1
very somewhat neither somewhat very don't
prompt prcanpt prompt unprompt unprompt know
0.9 0.7 nor 0.3 0.1 0.0
unprompt
0.5
Eight of th^e items (including the first item above) sought indications of the respond-
ent's "report appreciation," and cuciother eight (including the second item above)
sought indications of his "report-production appreciation." Roughly speaking, the
idea was to obtain indicators of the perceived benefits (e.g. "timely" reports) and
costs (e.g. "somewhat unprompt" on-line response) of MIS inquiry.
The scoring of the indicators of MIS appreciation is shown, by example, in the
two items above. MIS appreciation may be thought of as having "knowledge" and
"valuation" components. The «x>ring of the questionnaire items may be explained
in these terms. An appreciation aoote is taken as the "product" of a valuation and
(implicit or explicit) expression of knowledge. Valuation scores of 0.9, 0.7, 0.5, 0.3,
and 0.1 are based upon an arbitrary 0.0 to 1.0 scale range, subdivided into five inter-
MANAOBMBNT INFORMATION SYSTaiMS: APPSBSCTATION AND INVOLVEMENT 183
' An alternative method of correction would have been to eliminate the distorting item from
the scoring. Thu result, however, would have been the scoring of several respondents' a priori
B. BVKOiH HWAMHUM
MIS appreciation
"uninvolved" 18 6 24
"involved" 2 11 13
totals 20 17 37
X* - 9.79
significant at 0.01 level
The direction of covariation is as expected.
Secondly, consider the covariation of MIS appreciation with inquiry involvement:
MIS appreciation
"uninvolved" 18 7 25
"involved" 2 10 12
totals 20 17 37
x« - 7.89
significant at 0.01 level
Again, the direction of covariation ia aa expected.
involvement as .0, when, in fact, they were (however weakly) somewhat involved through their
submission of personal Activity Reports.
* Correlations were ctmpttted, however. The results were pretty much the suae (IS]. All statisti-
cal computations were made using IBM's System/360 Scientific Subroutine P a c k i ^ (PL/I),
Ptogftm Number %0A-CM.O7X.
• SpecificdUy, letting X,, Ai, and /< represent tin indices of a priori involvement, MIS ap-
preciation, and inquiry involvement of the tth user, the following classifications were made:
BIANAOEMBNT INFORMATION SYSTBiMS: APPRBCUTION AND INVOLVKMENT 185
inquiry involvement
"uninvolved" 19 6 24
"involved" 6 7 13
totals 25 12 37
X* - 2.82
significant at 0.10 level"
The relationship here is found to be weaker than in the first two cases, which is con-
sistent with the assumption that the coproduction is indirect, and mediated by another
variable.
Finally, the covariation of a priori involvement with inquiry involvement, given
MIS appreciation, naay be examined:
MIS appreciation
"unappreciative" "appreciative"
a priori
involvement "uninv." "involved" "uninv." "involved" totals
"uninvolved" 17 I 2 4 24
"involved" 1 1 5 6 13
totals 18 2 7 10 37
In neither half of the combined table are the results statistically significant. The
covariation between a priori involvement and inquiry involvement is thus "explained"
by the intervening variable, MIS appreciation. But the "insignificance" in the results
is for quite a different reason in each case, however! In the first, knowledge that a
manager is unappreciative is almost suflScient to imply complete noninvolvement.
In the second, knowledge that a manager is appreciative is almost sufficient to predict
involvement in »om£ form, but nothing can be said about which form. Thus, for any
Xi Si 0.100 "uninvolved"
> 0.100 "involved"
A{ < 0.50 "unappreeiative"
S; 0.50 "appreciative"
li < 0.100 "uninvolved"
& 0.100 "involved"
«• The Fisher exact probability was computed to be 0.048, which indicates a somewhat more
significant result.
186 S. BtmTON SWANBON
More work is also needed in developing the measures of MIS involvement. Although
the scaling technique applied to MIS appreciation was successful in discriminating
effectively among questionnaire respondents, the technique applied to a priori in-
volvement was much less so. While the assumed indicator of a priori involvement
(the initiation of change in the design or operational state of the system) still seems
to me a good choice, the method for effectively operationalizing its measure remains
a problem. More sophisticated measures of inquiry involvement (perhaps incorporating
some of the sociological implications cited above) are also called for.
Further studiefl of appreciation and involvement in other real-world MIS settings
are also obviously needed." The single case presented here does not permit effective
generalization. And, of course, experimentation should be undertaken. Causal infer-
ences based on observation alone are much too constrained.
Appendix
Questionnaire items indicating MIS appreciation
1. For me, the reports are (timely—untimely).
2. For me, the data is (relevant—irrelevant).
3. For me, the information is (unique—redundant).
4. For me, the data is (accurate—inaccurate).
5. For me, the data is (instructive—misinstructive).
6. For me, the reports are (concise, to the point—diffuse, not to the point).
7. For me, the meaning of the data is (unambiguous, clear—ambiguous, unclear).
8. For me, the reports are (readable—unreadable).
9. For me, the MIS/360 query language is (efficient—inefficient).
10. For me, the MIS/360 operating schedule of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily is (convenient—
inconvenient).
11. For me, the operation of the MIS/360 system is (reliable—^unreliable).
12. For me, the use of the 2260 and 2741 terminals is (untroublesome—troublesome).
13. For me, the MIS/360 report formatting capabilities are (adequate—inadequate).
14. For me, the average on-line response to an MIS/360 terminal inquiry is (prompt^—
unprompt).
15. For me, the MIS/360 Users Guide is (valuable—^valueless).
16. Relative to my needs for systems and programming support of MIS/360, the
Systems and Programming Group is (cooperative—uncooperative).
Questionnaire items indicating a priori involvement
1. How frequently (on the average) do you complete a personal Activity Reporting
Card for yourself?
2. How frequently (on the average) do you complete Activity Description Cards
or Product. Description Cards to update the Activity Status File?
3. How frequently (on the average) do you initiate changes to the content or format
of inputs to the Weekly Update Program?
4. How frequently (on the average) do you initiate changes to the update programs
for the ARIS files?
5. How frequently (on the average) do you update the Activity Status File from a
terminal?
" For a typology of possible MIS settinp see Mason and Mitroff [12]. Several of these settings
provide vivid contrasts to systems such as ARIS. It is interesting to speculate on the implications
of involvement and appreciation in such cases.
188 E. BtTBTON SWAN80N
6. How frequently (on the average) do you initiate changes to the content or format
of the ARIS files?
7. How frequently (on the average) do you initiate changes to the MIS/360 pro-
grams?
8. How frequently (on the average) do you initiate changes to the File Description
or Report Description tables for the ARIS files?
9. How frequently (on the average) do you initiate a written communication (e.g.
a memorandum, report, or newsletter) for the purpose of educating others in the
use of MIS/360?
10. How frequently (on the average) do you initiate a meeting (either formal or
informal) for the purpoire of educating others in the use of MIS/360?
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