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Chapter 1 The Importance of MIS
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data current. Those procedures need to provide, for example, a means to review your page’s content
regularly and a means to remove content that is judged inappropriate. Furthermore, you need to
train employees on how to follow those procedures and manage those employees to ensure that they
do. MIS is the management of your Facebook page to achieve your overall organization’s strategy.
Managing your own Facebook page is as simple an IS as exists. Larger, more comprehensive IS that
involve many, even dozens, of departments and thousands of employees require considerable work.
The definition of MIS has three key elements: management and use, information systems, and
strategies. Let’s consider each, starting first with information systems and their components.

Components of an Information System
A system is a group of components that interact to achieve some purpose. As you might guess,
an information system (IS) is a group of components that interacts to produce information. That
sentence, although true, raises another question: What are these components that interact to
produce information?
Figure 1-7 shows the five-component framework—a model of the components of an infor-
mation system: computer hardware, software, data, procedures, and people. These five
components are present in every information system, from the simplest to the most complex. For
example, when you use a computer to write a class report, you are using hardware (the computer,
storage disk, keyboard, and monitor), software (Word, WordPerfect, or some other word- processing
program), data (the words, sentences, and paragraphs in your report), procedures (the methods you
use to start the program, enter your report, print it, and save and back up your file), and people (you).
Consider a more complex example, say, an airline reservation system. It, too, consists of
these five components, even though each one is far more complicated. The hardware consists of
thousands of computers linked together by data communications hardware. Hundreds of different
programs coordinate communications among the computers, and still other programs perform
the reservations and related services. Additionally, the system must store millions upon millions
of characters of data about flights, customers, reservations, and other facts. Hundreds of different
procedures are followed by airline personnel, travel agents, and customers. Finally, the information
system includes people, not only the users of the system but also those who operate and service the
computers, those who maintain the data, and those who support the networks of computers.
The important point here is that the five components in Figure 1-7 are common to all informa-
tion systems, from the smallest to the largest. As you think about any information system, includ-
ing a new one like social networking, learn to look for these five components. Realize, too, that an
information system is not just a computer and a program, but rather an assembly of computers,
programs, data, procedures, and people.
As we will discuss later in this chapter, these five components also mean that many different
skills are required besides those of hardware technicians or computer programmers when building
or using an information system. See the Guide starting on page 62 for more.
Before we move forward, note that we have defined an information system to include a com-
puter. Some people would say that such a system is a computer-based information system.
They would note that there are information systems that do not include computers, such as a
calendar hanging on the wall outside of a conference room that is used to schedule the room’s use.
Such systems have been used by businesses for centuries. Although this point is true, in this book
we focus on computer-based information systems. To simplify and shorten the book, we will use
the term information system as a synonym for computer-based information system.
Management and Use of Information Systems

The next element in our definition of MIS is the management and use of information systems. Here
we define management to mean develop, maintain, and adapt. Information systems do not pop

Figure 1-7 Five-Component Framework
Five components of an Hardware Software Data Procedures People
Information System