Chapter 1: MGMT

T/F: Timelines add value to information as a means of avoiding bias.

False

Which of the following is an example of amplification effect of information systems?

Information on a person's social networking account can easily be distributed to an unintended audience.

Which of the following statements is true of information systems?

Information systems are involved in tracking employee payroll, taxes, benefits, and timesheets.

How are policies enforced in information systems?

Managers develop policies that are enforced by the information systems.

InfoTech Horizons, an IT company, is seeking to hire an experienced IT professional to assist the Chief Information Officer in his role. The new hire will be groomed to take on the role of the Chief Information Officer. Which of the following candidates, all of whom have good technical skills, will prove to be the best choice?

a computer professional with good knowledge of business

In order to safeguard individuals' sensitive information, which of the following organizations would typically restrict its employees' Internet usage?

a hospital

Which of the following is a common source of misunderstanding between IT and other departments?

technical jargon

T/F: The development and application of innovative information systems improve the operations of an organization; however, they do not lead to any competitive advantage.

False

T/F: The psychology of group dynamics invariably shifts positively when team members use online tools to communicate.

False

The success of web-based shopping hinges on ________.

building stronger customer relationships and identifying the unique needs of each customer

In an information system department, the operations department is responsible for ________.

handling backups and archiving

Which of the following is the role of a Chief Privacy Officer in an organization?

helping shape the policies that govern the protection of confidential information

The use of information systems in achieving excellence in operations can result in ________.

higher cost savings

Peter automates his email inbox such that his incoming mails are filtered and all the junk mails are sent directly to the spam folder. This saves him time as he does not have to sort through the mails to find his work-related mails. He also creates a group mailing list for his team that makes it easier for him to send mails to the entire team instead of including their email addresses individually. In this scenario, Peter is using information systems tools to ________.

improve individual productivity

Which of the following events led to tighter standards for accounting practices and a demand for more transparency in reporting?

the global financial crisis of 2009

An information system is used to centralize information related to voting behavior in Texas. One of the indicators measured by the system is the average waiting time to vote. The time people spend waiting in line to vote at each polling booth is aggregated for each region. This is then used to create a graph that depicts the average waiting times by location. According to this scenario, which of the following refers to information?

the graph with average waiting times

T/F: Organizations implement information systems to support and streamline business processes, but never to eliminate them.

False

Which of the following statements is true of information technology (IT)?

Anything capable of collecting, processing, storing, or displaying electronic data is potentially part of an information system.

________ focuses on designing, optimizing, and streamlining business processes throughout the organization, taking into account the human element.

Business process management

Harry, an employee of Bennett-Techno Inc., is responsible for ensuring that the technological setup in the organization supports the organization goals. He is also responsible for setting the organization goals. Which of the following positions does Harry hold in the organization?

Chief Information Officer

________ is the person who heads the department responsible for managing and maintaining information systems, and ensuring they support the organization's strategic goals.

Chief Information Officer

________ plays a leading role in managing efforts to improve an organization's ability to capture, nurture, and disseminate expertise.

Chief Knowledge Officer

________ refers to the processes by which electronic data that might be used as legal evidence are requested, secured, and searched.

E-discovery

T/F: Binary code for SOS is an example of knowledge.

False

T/F: Commercially produced information systems are inept at handling back-office information needs.

False

T/F: In certain situations, such as fund-raising for an NGO, information systems are not of any use.

False

Which of the following statements is true about the ethical issues surrounding information systems?

People tend to judge the severity of ethical violations in information systems partly on the basis of the number of people affected.

Which of the following questions pertains to maintaining security in an information system?

Should an employee be allowed to delete or access data that another employee inputs into the information system?

Which of the following statements is true about information and communications technology?

The main role of the telecommunications component involves moving electronic signals from one place to another.

Which of the following statements is true of the IT department areas?

The systems administration department installs, manages, and updates servers

Which of the following reasons led to the popularity of social networking sites?

These sites enabled the sharing of news, photos, videos, and tidbits easily.

A quantitative analyst working in an investment bank will be able to ________.

access some information on the bank's servers

Which of the following techniques helps IT staff collaborate with people in other functional areas?

avoiding using technical terms while speaking to internal customers

Anything that gives a firm a lead over its rivals is called ________.

competitive advantage

Which of the following refers to individual facts or pieces of information?

data

Walking Together, an NGO, uses historical trends to determine in which month the amount given as donations is the highest, and then it sets the dates for its donation drives based on the trends. This is an example of ________.

data-driven decision making

In an information systems department, the enterprise systems subunit is responsible for ________.

developing, installing, maintaining, and overseeing the organization's mission-critical software applications

Mark, a 22-year old with a viral infection, is admitted to a hospital. On the second day post-admission, a nurse takes a single high-temperature reading and enters it into the patient records information system. This single reading when combined with Mark's other symptoms and previous medical records, becomes ________.

information

The risk of privacy breaches in information systems has become greater because ________.

information systems have become more powerful and interconnected

The multitude of servers in Google's windowless data centers serves as an example that represents ________.

information technology

In an organization that is open to ideas from all employees, ________.

innovative concepts for information systems can come from any level

Which of the following functional areas in an information systems department maintains the location of servers and communications equipment?

operations

Purple Stones, an interior decorator, has an online store to enable quicker purchase of its products. The website allows users to post reviews of products. This helps other customers evaluate the quality of a product before buying it. Which of the following is illustrated in this scenario?

user-generated content

Which of the following is a method employed by some organizations to prevent access to USB ports in order to keep employees from copying data?

using epoxy glue

Chloe's, a chain of supermarkets, is conducting a customer survey in its largest store, which is in California. Customers are asked to fill out questionnaires as they enter the store. The questionnaire is divided into sections that polls customers on the store's products and the e-commerce website. Which of the following is a drawback of the data collected through this poll?

It is incomplete.

Which of the following statements is true about user-generated content?

It makes up most of the information in systems such as eBay, Craigslist, and Wikipedia.

Navi-devices Inc., a manufacturer of portable navigation devices, provides free traffic updates and identifies the nearest parking spaces available with its latest device. It accomplishes this by using GPS coordinates of subscribers and traffic data from radio stations. Which of the following is the most likely impact of this strategy?

It will provide the company with a competitive advantage

Which of the following statements is true of the information technology team in an organization?

It works closely with the staff from other functional areas of the organization.

Which of the following is the reason why privacy breaches present major risks in this era of information system computing?

The amount of information that is stored in information systems is vast and very private.

Which of the following is the reason why speech data is gaining importance in call centers?

The analysis of the tone of voice and tempo reveals valuable information.

Which of the following statements is true of information systems that support collaborative human activities?

These systems, being in their early stages, offer a framework for more improvements and features to be included.

Which of the following statements is true of data, information, and knowledge?

They blend together and form a continuum.

How do web-based online self-service applications transform an organization's relationships with its customers?

They free customers from time-consuming and routine forms of direct contact.

Which of the following is a constraint on crisis management teams?

They have very little time to react and take action.

Which of the following statements is true of web-based shopping and online self-service applications?

They increase the amount of time spent in face-to-face interactions with the customer.

Which of the following statements is true of management information systems?

They support tactical decision making at the managerial level.

T/F: A news agency requires an immediate account of the casualties in an airplane accident for a news alert. In this situation, a quick, approximate report would be preferred rather than a detailed, accurate report that requires considerable time to prepare.

True

T/F: Analysts can use software to simulate business processes and conduct "what if" experiments to find innovative approaches that leverage the power of information systems.

True

T/F: Business intelligence refers to all the information available to managers from many sources beyond the organization's own information systems.

True

T/F: Disconnects in communication between IT staff and others in the organization often arise because of the jargon barrier.

True

T/F: E-discovery is one of the methods used to uncover corporate scandals.

True

T/F: Information systems should meet compliance standards set by governments and other regulatory agencies, which may change from time to time and also vary by country or state.

True

T/F: Information systems support data-driven decision making which draws on a large amount of data to reveal important trends and patterns.

True

T/F: Orange fiber-optic cables, the coaxial cables used by cable TV companies, and the slender copper telephone wiring common in homes are an important part of the infrastructure of information systems.

True

T/F: The binary code for SOS is information and the word "HELP!!!" is knowledge.

True

T/F: The chief information officer heads the IT department in most organizations.

True

T/F: The close integration of information technology and strategy with every aspect of business means that every employee is really an "information officer."

True

T/F: The study of information systems-how people, technology, processes, and data work together-is referred to as management information systems.

True

Play-e-ball, a company that creates games for gaming consoles, gathers data from the information systems of its partners, suppliers, and distributors. It uses this data along with internal data to develop different games for different consumer demographics, and it targets the most profitable segments. Which of the following is illustrated in this scenario?

business intelligence

________ refers to the information that managers draw from the company's own information systems and external sources to make decisions.

business intelligence

A single high-temperature reading of a patient at Patient First, a 24-hour walk-in clinic in Florida, is a piece of ________.

data

Raw facts that are available in different formats and sizes are called ________.

data

As a result of people editing, cutting and pasting, and making copies of electronic documents, ________.

organizations find it difficult to manage the retention process

The function of which of the following components of an information system is to oversee if every data transaction made by an employee is logged in the information system?

process

Which of the following is a critical component of an information system?

processes

Which of the following is a function of accounting information systems?

procuring goods and services

The use of an information system in a grocery store would improve customer satisfaction by ________.

providing self-service checkouts

Which of the following is a function of the telecommunications component?

routing traffic to different locations

In Kansas, an athletics association is partnered with a university to identify talented youth across the state. They use an online test to ensure easy accessibility to students across the state. This is an illustration of ________.

strategic use of information systems

Unknown hackers hack into the network security of a bank and steal the personal identification information of approximately 200,000 clients. Which of the following persons will be responsible for handling this situation?

the Chief Information Security Officer

Which of the following individuals is responsible for ensuring that a company's confidential information is well-protected?

the Chief Information Security Officer

________ is responsible for identifying, assessing, and addressing threats to an organization from unforeseen circumstances.

the crisis management team

It is important to appreciate the ethical issues involved in the development and use of information systems because ________.

the data they contain is vast and personal

Marsha, a sales executive, faces issues while copying data from one spreadsheet to another. The formatting of the copied data is not the same as that of the data that is pasted. She started facing this problem only after her older spreadsheet application was upgraded to a newer version. She raises a ticket stating "Request older system. New system not working as desired." The IT technician misconstrues this as a request to replace the computer with an older version. When Marsha returns the next morning, she finds that her computer has been replaced with an older version. Which of the following is the reason why her request had been misunderstood?

the jargon barrier

Which of the following poses a hindrance to the adoption of information systems in nonprofit organizations and government?

the lack of dedicated funding

Which of the following is a concern regarding information systems that support virtual teamwork?

the relative stage of infancy of such systems

People pay a monthly subscription fee to financial service companies to get current stock prices. Which of the following characteristics of information does this highlight?

timeliness