Information Technology for Management: Transforming Organizations in the Digital Economy

Thoroughly Updated Sixth Edition!

Social networks are transforming how people communicate, work, and play. This comprehensive new edition highlights this new technology and scores of others that are changing how organizations operate and compete in the current global environment.

The cover depicts two examples of social network. The larger image is a visualization of the trust relationships in a web-based social network. The smaller figures are default avatars from Second Life, a multi-layered, 3D virtual world that is imagined, created, and owned by its residents.

See chapter 4 for more information on social networks.

For more information on Second Life, visit second life.com or see Second Life: the Official Guide by Rymaszewski et al. at www. sybex.com/go/secondlife

For more information on the trust network, visit trust.mindswap.org

Dr. Efraim Turban obtained his M.B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. His industry experience includes eight years as an industrial engineer, three of which were spent at General Electric Transformers Plant in Oakland, California. He also has extensive consulting experience to small and large corporations as well as to governments. In his over thirty years of teaching, Professor Turban has served as Chaired Professor at Eastern Illinois University, and as Visiting Professor at City University of Hong Kong, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and University of Science and technology in Hong Kong. He has also taught at UCLA, USC, Simon Fraser University, Lehigh University, California State University, Long Beach, and Florida International University.

Dr. Turban was a co-recipient of the 1984/85 National Management Science Award (Artificial Intelligence in Management). In 1997 he received the Distinguished Faculty Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award at California State University, Long beach.
Dr. Turban has published over 110 articles in leading journals including the following: Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Operations research, Journal of MIS, Communications of the ACM, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Information Systems Frontiers, Decision Support Systems, International Journal of Information Management, Heuristics, Expert Systems with Applications, International Journal of Applied Expert Systems, Journal of Investing, Accounting, Management and Information Systems, Computers and Operations research, Computers and Industrial Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Omega, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, and Electronic Markets. He has also published 23 books, including best seller such as Neural Networks: Applications in Investment and Financial Services (2nd edition) (co-editor with R. Trippi), Richard D. Irwin, 1996; Decision Support Systems and Business Intelligence (Prentice Hall, 8th edition, 2007); Expert Systems and Applied Artificial Intelligence, (MacMillan Publishing co., 1992), Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Approach, 5th edition, (Prentice Hall, 2008), Introduction to Information Technology 4th edition (Wiley, 2007), and Introduction to Electronic Commerce (Prentice Hall, 2003). His newest book, Business Intelligence (Prentice Hall) is coming in 2007.

Professor Turban is a Visiting Scholar with the Pacific Institute for Information Systems Management College of Business University of Hawaii at Manoa, His major research interests include electronic commerce, strategy, and implementation.

Dr. Dorothy Leidner is the Randall W. and Sandra Ferguson Professor of Information Systems and Director of the Center for Knowledge management at Baylor University. Prior to rejoining the Baylor faculty, she was associate professor at INSEAD and at Texas Christian University. She has also been visiting Professor at Instituto tecnologico y des Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico, at the Institut d' Administration Des Entreprises at the Universite de caen, Frande, and at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Leidner received her Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Texas at Austin, where she also obtained her M.B.A. and her B.A. in Plan II. Dr. Leidner's research has been published in a variety of journals, such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, and Organization Science. She has received best-paper awards in 1993 from the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences, in 1995 from MIS Quarterly, and in 1999 from the Academy of Management. She is currently serving as co-editor of the Journal Data Base for Advances in Information Systems. She is also an associate editor for MIS Quarterly and a senior editor for the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and is on the editorial board of MISQ Executive.

Dr. Ephraim R. McLean earned his Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from Cornell University in 1958. After brief service in the U.S. Army Ordinance Corps, he worked for the Procter & Gamble Co. for seven years, first in manufacturing management and later as a computer systems analyst. In 1965, he left P&G and entered the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtaining his master's degree in 1967 and his doctorate in 1970.

While at M.I.T., he began an interest in the application of computer technology to medicine, working on his dissertation at the Lacey Clinic in Boston. While there, he was instrumental in developing the Lahey Clinic Automated Medical History System. During the Same period, he served as an instructor at M.I.T and also assisted in the preparation of the books The Impact of Computers on Management (MIT Press, 1967), the Impact of Computes on Collective Bargaining (MIT Press, 1969), and Computers in Knowledge-Based Fields (MIT Press 1970),. While at M.I.T., he was elected to Sigma XI, the scientific research society.

Dr. McLean left .I.T. and joined the faculty of the Anderson Graduate School of Management at The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in winter 1970. He was the founding Director of the Information Systems research Program and the first Chairman of the Information Systems ar4ea, both within the Anderson Graduate School of Management. In fall 1987, he was named to the George E. Smith Eminent Scholar's Chair in the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University in Atlanta; in 2002, was appointed Regent's Professor in the University System of Georgia.

Dr. James C. Wetherbe is Stevenson Chair of Information Technology at Texas Tech University as well as Professor of MIS at the University of Minnesota where he directed the MIS research Center of 20 years. he is internationally known as a dynamic and entertaining speaker, author, and leading authority on the use of computers and information systems to improve organizational performance and competitiveness. He is particularly appreciated for his ability to explain complex technology in straightforward, practical terms that can be strategically applied by both executives and general management.

Dr. McLean has published over 125 articles in such publications as the Harvard Business review, Sloan Management review, California Management Review, Communications of the ACM, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Management Science, Journal of MIS, Information & Management, DATABASE, InformationWeek, DATAMATION, computer World, and the Proceedings of ICISA. HICSS, and AMCIS. He is the co-author (with John Soden of Mckinsey & co.) of Strategic Planning for MIS (Wiley Interscience, 1977), co-editor of a book of programs entitled APL Applications in Management (UCLA, 1981), and co-editor of The Management of Information Systems (Dryden Press, 2nd ed., 1994). He was a founding associate editor for research of the MIS Quarterly, and for seven years the senior co-editor of the DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems.

He has served four times on the national executive Council of the Society for Information Management (SIM). In 1980, he co-chaired the organizing committee for the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) and was Conferences Co-chairman in 1981 in Cambridge, MA; Conference Chairman in 1986 in San Diego, CA; and Conference Co-Chairman in 1997 in Atlanta, CA. He is currently the Executive Director of the ICIS and of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) of which he was one of the founding members. In 1999, he was named a fellow of the AIS, one of the first in the world so honored. In 2003, he was named IS Educator of the Year by the Special Interest Group on Education of the Association for Information technology Professionals (AITP).

Dr. Wetherbe is the author of 18 highly regarded books and is quoted often in leading business and information systems journals. He has also authored over 200 top dozen information technology consultants, and is the first recipient of the MIS Quarterly Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also served on the Faculties of the University of Memphis, where he was Fed Ex Professor and Director of the Center for Cycle Time Research, and the University of Houston.

Dr. Wetherbe received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University.