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Microsoft Word - ACCT 326 Writing Assignment 1.docx ACCT 326 Writing Assignment #1 Managing in a global, digital society requires accountants to pay close attention to information. One of the reasons accountants have to pay close attention to information is because management will use the information presented by accountants for making crucial decisions. Finally, accountants must have the correct skills to perform this and other key functions. Required Readings (see classroom) Management Misinformation Systems (Russell L. Ackoff) CPA Horizons 20225 Report (AICPA) Paper Layout Part I (Information Management Today): Roughly 50 years ago, Russell Ackoff wrote about the importance, or lack of importance, of information that management needs in “Ackoff’s Management Information System” (see attachment). After reading the article, you will analyze how each assumption applies or does not apply to our society today. Treat each assumption separately in your analysis. As part of your response, provide a specific example for each assumption. Part II (Information Management Revisited): After reading the Ackoff article, you will revise each of 5 assumptions to reflect a global, digital society. You will provide a summary (at least four sentences) that describe each revised assumption in detail and how they reflect our global, digital society. Part III (Framework for Information Management): You will review the CPA Horizon Report (see attachment). After reviewing the report, you will describe how the CPA Horizon Report will help accountants to provide their managers with the right information at the right time in the right format. You will identify and describe three key skills that are not listed in the report that will allow accountants to produce the right information for their managers and their users. One of the skills you propose must be one that addresses the advances in technology. Finally, you will explain how your degree from UMUC and this class will help you to ‘embrace the future’ as noted in the report Paper Guidelines Page Length: Your response should not exceed eight pages (double-spaced) or four pages (single-spaced). Note that cover page, reference page, and appendix, if provided are excluded from the page count. References: You will need to include at least four literary references (one reference must be from the readings in our class) and at least two in-text citations to support your paper. These references must be related directly to the topics covered in the paper. References & citations must be properly formatted as noted below. Headings: You will need to use headings (short, brief, and centered) to separate each area of your paper. Your headings should have an appropriate title such as Information Management Today instead of Part I. Margins & Font Sizes: Use standard margins (minimum .5"; maximum 1.5") and standard font size (minimum 10 point; maximum 12 point) in your paper. Writing Style: APA is the preferred writing style, but you can choose any appropriate writing style (e.g. MLA), except that all references are to be formatted via APA. Please consult the UMUC Effective Writing Center (http://www.umuc.edu/writingcenter/index.cfm) for assistance regarding the choice of styles and formatting of references via APA. Management Misinformation Systems Management Misinformation Systems Author(s): Russell L. Ackoff Source: Management Science, Vol. 14, No. 4, Application Series (Dec., 1967), pp. B147-B156 Published by: INFORMS Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2628680 Accessed: 03-07-2018 01:02 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms INFORMS is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Management Science This content downloaded from 54.84.104.155 on Tue, 03 Jul 2018 01:02:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MANAGEMENT SCIENCE Vol. 14, No. 4, December, 1967 Printed in U.S.A. MANAGEMENT MISINFORMATION SYSTEMS * RUSSELL L. ACKOFF University of Pennsylvania Five assumptions commonly made by designers of management information systems are identified. It is argued that these are not justified in many (if not most) cases and hence lead to major deficiencies in the resulting systems. These assumptions are: (1) the critical deficiency under which most managers operate is the lack of relevant information, (2) the manager needs the infor- mation he wants, (3) if a manager has the information he needs his decision making will improve, (4) better communication between managers improves organizational performance, and (5) a manager does not have to understand how his information system works, only how to use it. To overcome these assumptions and the deficiencies which result from them, a management information system should be imbedded in a management control system. A procedure for designing such a system is proposed and an example is given of the type of control system which it produces. The growing preoccupation of operations researchers and management scien- tists with Management Information Systems (MIS's) is apparent. In fact, for some the design of such systems has almost become synonymous with operations research or management science. Enthusiasm for such systems is understand- able: it involves the researcher in a romantic relationship with the most glamorous instrument of our time, the computer. Such enthusiasm is understandable but, nevertheless, some of the excesses to which it has led are not excusable. Contrary to the impression produced by the growing literature, few com- puterized management information systems have been put into operation. Of those I've seen that have been implemented, most have not matched expectations and some have been outright failures. I believe that these near- and far-misses could have been avoided if certain false (and usually implicit) assumptions on which many such systems have been erected had not been made. There seem to be five common and erroneous assumptions underlying the design of most MIS's, each of which I will consider. After doing so I will outline an MIS design procedure which avoids these assumptions. Give Them More Most MIS's are designed on the assumption that the critical deficiency under which most managers operate is the lack of relevant information. I do not deny that most managers lack a good deal of information that they should have, but I do deny that this is the most important informational deficiency from which they suffer. It seems to me that they suffer more from an over abundance of irrelevant information. * Received June 1967. B-147 This content downloaded from 54.84.104.155 on Tue, 03 Jul 2018 01:02:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms B-148 RUSSELL L. ACKOFF This is not a play on words. The consequences of changing the emphasis of an MIS from supplying relevant information to eliminating irrelevant information is considerable. If one is preoccupied with supplying relevant information, attention is almost exclusively given to the generation, storage, and retrieval of information: hence emphasis is placed on constructing data banks, coding, indexing, updating files, access languages, and so on. The ideal which has emerged from this orientation is an infinite pool of data into which a manager can reach to pull out any information he wants. If, on the other hand, one sees the manager's information problem primarily, but not exclusively, as one that arises out of an overabundance of irrelevant information, most of which was not asked for, then the two most important functions of an information system become filtration (or evaluation) and condensation. The literature on MIS's seldom refers to these functions let alone considers how to carry them out. My experience indicates that most managers receive much more data (if not information) than they can possibly absorb even if they spend all of their time trying to do so. Hence they already suffer from an information overload. They must spend a great deal of time separating the relevant form the irrelevant and searching for the kernels in the relevant documents. For example, I have found that I receive an average of forty-three hours of unsolicited reading material each week. The solicited material is usually half again this amount. I have seen a daily stock status report that consists of approximately six hundred pages of computer print-out. The report is circulated daily across man- agers' desks. I've also seen requests for major capital expenditures that come in book size, several of which are distributed to managers each week. It is not uncommon for many managers to receive an average of one journal a day or more. One could go on and on. Unless the information overload to which managers are subjected is reduced, any additional information made available by an MIS cannot be expected to be used effectively. Even relevant documents have too much redundancy. Most documents can be considerably condensed without loss of content. My point here is best made, perhaps, by describing briefly an experiment that a few of my colleagues and I conducted on the OR literature several years ago. By using a panel of well-known experts we identified four OR articles that all members of the panel considered to be "above average," and four articles that were considered to be "below average." The authors of the eight articles were asked to prepare "objective" examinations (duration thirty minutes) plus answers for graduate students who were to be assigned the articles for reading. (The authors were not informed about the experiment.) Then several experienced writers were asked to reduce each article to 2 and 3 of its original length only by eliminating words. They also prepared a brief abstract of each article. Those who did the condensing did not see the examinations to be given to the students. A group of graduate students who had not previously read the articles were then selected. Each one was given four articles randomly selected, each of which This content downloaded from 54.84.104.155 on Tue, 03 Jul 2018 01:02:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MANAGEMENT