| Dissertation |
Thesis (Ph.D.) --NUI, 1999 at Department of Accounting, Finance & Information Systems, UCC. |
| Summary |
Information, and more specifically its circulation amongst actors, has always been one of the foundations of society. The ability of organisations to compete successfully revolves around their ability to manage and utilise their information resource more efficiently. As a result, Information Technologies (IT) are becoming increasingly important in our modern world because they change the parameters of the circulation of information by creating new ways to communicate, exchange information and opinions and to build a common understanding. Thus, IS research must be re-oriented towards investigations and research designs likely to produce a greater understanding of the role of information in management by focusing on the flows of information amongst organisational actors. In this research, Network Analysis, an alternative model for the representation and analysis of organisations was used in order to assess its potential as a framework that may lead to fresh ideas in IS research. Network Analysis concentrates on networks, defined as the observed pattern of organisation. The strength of network analysis is to allow for a close examination of the structure and pattern of relationships that emerge amongst organisational actors over time and to enable researchers to collect large amounts of data regarding managers, their linkages to each other, the usage of the information exchanged and the managerial activities served by these exchanges. Thus, network analysis enables researchers to transcend the problems identified by previous research, namely that some managerial processes sometimes appear to be without any order and that the preferences of managers are often vague and contradictory, even when there is agreement on the overall objectives of the firm. This research attempted to apply network analysis to the investigation of the information flows amongst managers and to present specific new ideas leading to better organisational models of information circulation and decision making, and to better models of how IS con contribute to these vital organisational processes. This was done by focusing on groups of managers involved in a sample of complex decision making processes in order to attempt to re-create an overall picture of how individual action turned into what can be termed "organisational action" - i.e.: the observable pattern of decision making of that organisation. |
| Subject |
Information technology -- Management.
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| Collection |
Theses Ph.D.
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Theses Accounting, Finance and Management Information Systems Department
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| Description |
448 p. ; 30 cm. |
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