Assignment: Knowledge is Information
Assignment: Knowledge is Information
Data Information Knowledge
Definition Simple observations of the state of the world
Data endowed with relevance and purpose
Information from the human mind (includes reflection, synthesis, context)
Characteristics • Easily structured • Easily captured on machines • Often quantified • Easily transferred • Mere facts
• Requires unit of analysis • Data that have been
processed • Human mediation
necessary
• Hard to structure • Difficult to capture on machines • Often tacit • Hard to transfer
Example Daily inventory report of all inventory items sent to the CEO of a large manufacturing company
Daily inventory report of items that are below economic order quantity levels sent to inventory manager
Inventory manager’s knowledge of which items need to be reordered in light of daily inventory report, anticipated labor strikes, and a flood in Brazil that affects the supply of a major component
6 Peter F. Drucker, “The Coming of the New Organization,” Harvard Business Review (January–February 1988), 45–53.
Top Management Middle Management Supervisory and Lower‐Level Management
Time Horizon Long: years Medium: weeks, months, years Short: day to day
Level of Detail Highly aggregated Less accurate More predictive
Summarized Integrated Often financial
Very detailed Very accurate Often nonfinancial
Source Primarily external Primarily internal with limited external
Internal
Decision Extremely judgmental Uses creativity and analytical skills
Relatively judgmental Heavily reliant on rules
FIGURE I-7 Information characteristics across hierarchical levels. Source: G. Adapted from Anthony Gorry and Michael S. Scott Morton, “A Framework for Management Information Systems,” Sloan Management Review 13, no. 1, 55–70.
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12 Introduction
information that is aggregated, externally oriented, and more subjective than supervisors require. The information needs of middle managers in terms of these characteristics fall between the needs of supervisors and of senior management. Because information needs vary across levels, a daily inventory report of a large manufacturing firm may serve as information for a low‐level inventory manager whereas the CEO would consider such a report to be merely data. The context in which the report is used must be considered in determining whether it is information.
Knowledge is information that is synthesized and contextualized to provide value. It is information with the most value. Knowledge consists of a mix of contextual information, values, experiences, and rules. For example, the mashup of locations and housing prices means one thing to a real estate agent, another thing to a potential buyer, and yet something else to an economist.
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
