Information Technology As Decision Al Guidance example essay topic

I. Introduction Examining my lessons on how businesses and other similar entities traditionally developed their strategies, and comparing it with the way that some of today's more innovative firms have begun to plan, reminds me of the change in many companies' approach to quality decision-making. From what I have learned, quality was traditionally associated with inspectors assuring quality after the fact -- after parts were made -- rather than getting everyone down the line involved in building in quality in the first place, as eventually happened through the TQM (Total Quality Management) movement. Indisputably, a similar trend is emerging in the fields of decision-making and strategy. Traditionally, many companies regarded strategy development as an exercise in which specialists 'programmed' the right products and services into existing markets. According to what I have read, however, as global competition grows more complex and volatile, and as information technology revolutionizes organizational structure and decision making, responsive, flexible, and innovative organizational designs displace hierarchical, command-and-control structures.

This is putting decision-making strategy as a 'planning-by-the-numbers' process on the same road to obsolescence as the notion that we can create quality by setting tolerance standards and manning inspection stations. The impact of information technology on how organizations make change, make decisions, and develop has been nothing short of profound. Consider any aspect of the new technology-from the installation of desktop computers to automated inventory and customer support, computer-aided manufacturing, electronic mail, and videoconferencing. Each of these innovations has forever changed the nature of work, forcing old organizational structures into new configurations. To appreciate the impact on decision-making, one must take a deeper look at some of the changes that accompany a new technology. Through implementing information technology, organizations not only increase process efficiency, they also change the central point of knowledge.

In the eyes of many managers, this equates to changing the focal point of power. If implemented in its most productive fashion, information technology provides line employees with important data to perform their jobs more effectively and make decisions on job changes. Information technology changes the time dimension of many communication and decision-making processes by providing global communication networks that cross multiple time zones and by increasing the turnaround time of production and feedback data. This, in turn, provides employees with information technology and considerably more information on a more frequent basis.

Coping and intellectual skills to handle these changes in information flow are critical. II. Policy-Making: Genuine Application of Info- technologies in Decision-making Policy is the product of a group struggle between contending factions who constantly strive to weight policy creation and decision making in their favor. As one good example that I uncovered, within social service settings; resource policies promoted by management compete with service policies of social workers. Management familiarity with information technology rewards operational advantage in resource application at the expense of social work personnel. Social workers thus far have reportedly failed to incorporate information technology with hin the natural systems approach resulting in a state of dis empowerment face to face with information technology itself.

My relevant research indicates that the social worker will be able to avail himself of information technology only as a result of redefinition of social services organization policy based on social work concepts such as social change, involvement, informal organization and empowerment. Policy as a results of a decision-making and as a guide to action (Meehan, 1985) is directed towards the accomplishment of some purpose or goal by implementing a pattern of actions. This stands in contradiction to giving individuals the opportunity of shaping separate discrete decisions (Anderson, 1975: 3). Policy development is understood primarily in terms of the making of choices concerning alternatives to be achieved and how this is to be effected. Policy development includes in its repertoire organizational, informational and political conditions under which decisions are made (Pardeck, Umf ress & Murphy, 1985).

The administrative tool used to apply a policy is inherent to it (Meehan, 1985; Calista, 1986). Challis et al. (1988) refer to factors, one of which is the organizational. There are those who view technology as the controlling decision-making force in organizations. Wilson (1989) sees technology as the dominating factor within an organization and emphasizes its influence. 'Technology demands characteristic ways of thinking...

Technology sets its own objectives, and would have us evaluate progress towards those objectives in terms of its own criteria and logic. These demands and criteria are quite independent of the 'content' of the technology. Technology is more than an expression of culture -- technology drives culture. In a real sense technology is culture' (Wilson, 1989: 49).

From what I have inferred, if one concentrate on the structural elements of information technology as many observers have done, they run the risk of falling under the spell of 'techno-value systems. ' Such an arrogant position sees information technology as assuming a central and controlling posture in the organizational framework, in its policy development and policy implementation. Murphy and Pardeck present the reality of this situation when they write in an article that, 'computers create a unique presence in an organization, which requires that life be altered in many significant ways' (1990 a: 1). This overly deterministic and rigid perception of the nature of information technology implies that information technology will control and regulate the value system of the organization, its policy, its organizational framework, the roles of the personnel of the organization and the organization's normative behavior with consistent reference to the decision-making process.

So with all of this in mind, how does information technology interact specifically with decision-making policy in a social service organization? In order to better understand the dynamic interplay between managers and social workers in the quest for information technology control, I reviewed a journal article in which Eaglstein and Berman carried out a study using the previously mentioned 'policy streams' approach of Webb and Wi stow (1986). They analyzed the encounter between two policy streams, in the use of information technology; the service policy stream and the resource policy stream. The Eaglstein & Berman Study: Eaglstein and Berman (1993) studied the use of computers and the attitude towards their use in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in Israel. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is the central governmental agency that determines social policy, initiates legislation and enacts regulations for social service delivery carried out by over 200 local authorities. Supervision of social services in local authorities is carried out both by the ministry's national supervisors, and by district supervisors in the four district offices.

In their study, Eaglstein and Berman compared the decision-making use and attitude towards computers between the ministry's department administrators and its national supervisors. Eaglstein and Berman's study was based on a sample drawn from a larger study of ministry personnel. It included 36 senior officials employed by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Twenty were department administrators and 16 were national supervisors.

As they cite in the text of the article, historically; computerization policy of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has placed priority on the development of computerized programs, which serve as funnels for transfer of payments to outside service agencies. These provide services such as day care, institutional care for children and the aged, medical payments for the needy, and social service manpower. These services comprise the major financial expense of the social affairs section of the ministry, and the major financial output of various departmental budgets of the social affairs section of the ministry. Therefore, they demand the administrator's utmost attention. National supervisors have no specialized information technology programming at their disposal. They are dependent on paper reporting and tend to use the computer only for the administrative aspects of their tasks.

Eaglstein and Berman reported on the impact of this resource dominating information technology policy on department administrators and national supervisors and how it affected the decision-making process. They studied the difference between department administrators and national supervisors in four categories: (1) attitude towards the computer, (2) use of the computer, (3) the impact of the computer, and (4) influence over computer use to judge how realistically affective such technology is so far with relevance to genuine influence on human resources. Eaglstein and Berman demonstrate that the domination of one policy stream impacts on the implementation of information technology programs at the expense of the other policy stream. As the computer policy of the ministry is resource oriented, the programs of the computer had a greater impact on the decision-making tasks of the department administrators who deal with resources.

In their case, control of resources has priority over the control of people even in a people processing organization. Once the computer programs controlling resources were in place the programming in the area of resource policy continued to receive priority to the access of information technology services at the expense of service policy personnel. The reason for this divergent application of computer resources may not only be related to the policy priorities of the computer department but I imagine may also be linked to the ideological preferences of social workers regarding computerization in areas such as decision-making as well. Social workers do not compete on equal ground for the use of the computer as a resource thereby diminishing the conflict of policy streams within the organization for that resource. Information technology can still today be perceived as a scarce resource for which alternative policy streams compete for its use. The incompatibility between management and social workers in social service organizations in their perception of information technology, how it should be used in decision-making and for what purpose will create a competitive atmosphere for the use of information technology in the future.

The primary policy stream within the social service organization will dominate the information technology process using it to serve its own goals to the disadvantage of other policy alternatives. To me, this suggests that information technology will either answer the decision-making and various other needs of the manager (the resource stream), or the social worker (the service stream). The prevailing policy stream will also determine the content of the organizations information system, which is a product of the information technology process. This has long-range impact on the social service organization as the type of information that is used in the organization, its dissemination and utilization will reinforce prevailing organization norms and goals..

Problems With Information Technologies Aimed Solely at Decision-Making As advances in computer-based systems (CBS) have continued, development problems can occur which can adversely affect systems developers and users of these technologies, especially those specifically designed to improve or affect decision making. One major difficulty concerns the legal liability of information technology that can occur as a result of defective or flawed systems development efforts. Trading information technology and DSS are considered to be decision-enhancing since their access to stored models and output such as displays of data, reports on different models employed, etc. are intended to support and guide the user throughout the decision process to enhance a decision maker's judgments and subsequent actions. Wilson (1989) refers to this when he states that trading information technology via DSS output may information technology itself be produced from the judgmental inputs of the DSS user. Thus, the interaction between the system information technology itself and the user is determined to be of utmost concern. Issues of interest might certainly include the decision maker's experience with the problem or task being dealt with, i. e., the user's degree of expertise and the decision-making style or preference of the decision maker.

Wilson (1989) also addresses another decision-enhancing perspective associated with information technology DSS. He refers to information technology as decision al guidance: 'How a decision support system enlightens or sways information technologies users as they structure and execute their decision-making processes, that is, as they choose among and use the system's functional capabilities ' (p. 107). Silver provides some key distinctions in defining decision al guidance. He indicates that information technology can be inadvertent, an unintended consequence of how the system is designed, or deliberate, wherein guidance is intentionally built into the system.

Decisional guidance can also be suggestive or informative. Suggestive guidance makes judgmental recommendations to the decision maker, whereas informative guidance provides pertinent information that illuminates the judgment of the decision maker, with information technology throughout actually suggesting how he / she should act. Finally, Silver characterizes decision al guidance as that intended for structuring versus executing the decision. Structuring decision al guidance affects how the user chooses which system operators to use and the order in which to invoke them whereas executing guidance affects how the decision maker performs the evaluative and predictive judgments necessary when executing the chosen operators. Wilson (1989) expresses concerns regarding decision al guidance; one consideration deals with technology in supporting decision makers while the other concerns influencing them. A motive for supporting decision makers, i. e., supportive decision al guidance, is admirable in that designers might then be able to develop more supportive DSS, a DSS that assists users in exercising judgment as they interact with information technology through the DSS and cope with information technologies complex information.

Silver suggests that the more complex a DSS and the less structured the task is in the mind of the decision maker, the greater the need for guidance. As I could infer from my reading, however, he also asserts that it serves as a vehicle for encouraging a given behavior.