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Preface
Chapters 1 through 6 begin with a new discussion of Falcon Security, a privately owned
company that provides surveillance and inspection services for companies using flying drones.
Chapters 7–12 continue to be introduced by PRIDE Systems, a cloud-based virtual exercise com-
petition and healthcare startup. In addition to motivating the chapter material, both case scenar-
ios provide numerous opportunities for students to practice one of Chapter 1’s key skills: “Assess,
evaluate, and apply emerging technology to business.”
This edition continues to have a focus on teaching ethics. Every Ethics Guide asks students to
apply Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism, or both to the busi-
ness situation described in the guide. We hope you find the ethical considerations richer and deeper
with these exercises. The categorical imperative is introduced in the Ethics Guide in Chapter 1 (pages
56–57), and utilitarianism is introduced in the Ethics Guide in Chapter 2 (pages 92–93).
As shown in Table 1, additional changes were made to every chapter, including six new
Security Guides, six new So What? Features, three new Ethics Guides, and updates to chapter
cases. Additional figures, like the one showing mobile ad spending in Chapter 8, were added
to make the text more accessible. Numerous changes were made throughout the chapters in
an attempt to keep them up to date. MIS moves fast, and to keep the text current, we checked
every fact, data point, sentence, and industry reference for obsolescence and replaced them as
necessary.
To reiterate the preface of earlier editions, we believe it is exceedingly important to make these
frequent adaptations because of the delays associated with a 2-year revision cycle. Text materials
we develop in April of one year are published in January of the next year and are first used by
students in September—a minimum 17-month delay.
For some areas of study, a year and a half may not seem long because little changes in that
amount of time. But in MIS, entire companies can be founded and then sold for billions of dol-
lars in just a few years. YouTube, for example, was founded in February 2005 and then sold in
November 2006 to Google for $1.65B (21 months). Facebook started in 2004 and currently
(2015) has a market capitalization exceeding $212B. MIS changes fast—very fast. We hope this
new edition is the most up-to-date MIS textbook available.
Importance of MIS

As stated, we continue to believe we are teaching the single most important course in the business
school. The rationale for this bold statement is presented in Chapter 1, starting on page 1. In brief,
the argument relies on two observations.
First, processing power, interconnectivity of devices, storage capacity, and bandwidth are all
increasing so rapidly that it’s fundamentally changing how we use digital devices. Businesses are
increasingly finding—and, more importantly, increasingly required to find—innovative applica-
tions for information systems. The incorporation of Facebook and Twitter into marketing systems
is an obvious example, but this example is only the tip of the iceberg. For at least the next 10 years,
every business professional will, at the minimum, need to be able to assess the efficacy of proposed
IS applications. To excel, business professionals will also need to define innovative IS applications.
Further, professionals who want to emerge from the middle ranks of management will, at
some point, need to demonstrate the ability to manage projects that develop these innovative in-
formation systems. Such skills will not be optional. Businesses that fail to create systems that take
advantage of changes in technology will fall prey to competition that can create such systems. So,
too, will business professionals.
The second premise for the singular importance of the MIS class relies on the work of Robert
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Reich, former Secretary of Labor for the Clinton administration. In The Work of Nations, Reich
identifies four essential skills for knowledge workers in the 21st century:
• Abstract thinking
• Systems thinking