Information Needs for the AIS

INFORMATION NEEDS FOR THE AIS Student: Professor: Course title: Date:  Introduction Management accounting systems are very necessary for the proper running of a business. This owes to the fact that accounting information systems offer information related to internal operations of the business in a timely manner. The managers of an organization require specific information and data regarding certain business processes for controlling costs, and expenses and also executing sound deliberations. Every industry and organization has specific information needs for their accounting systems. For instance, the management requirements at a retail business will be far much different from those in a service or distribution type of organization. One type of management systems may not fill the needs of all these firms. With no management and accounting information systems, organizations will be less organized since this aspect is very important in accounting and management systems. It is the purpose of this paper to cross examine the assumptions made the by the various leaders regarding effective accounting information systems. Improper Assumptions Related to Accounting Information systems and the Related Information Ackoff (1967) postulated five assumptions that are mostly made by organizational leaders with regard to the management of information systems. Concerning this, he observes that some of such assumptions are wrong and could not be justified by these leaders. The author adds that wrong assumptions may lead to serious deficits in the resulting systems, thus leading to what he terms as “management misinformation systems”. He further observes that for these leaders to overcome these deficities and assumptions resulting from management misinformation systems, these systems ought to be embedded in a management control system that is effective. The five assumptions according to Ackoff are based on the perceived usefulness and MIS success. Regarding these assumptions, leaders are affected by an overwhelm of information some of which may be not very necessary and unsolicited to be directly presented to the manager, leaving the lower employees in the cold. Ackoff’s Assumptions include the following: a) A leader does not have to understand how his information system works, as long as he or she is conversant on using it. The assumption by these leaders that they do not need to know how a system works is totally misguided. This is because for a leader to be effective, he or she ought to understand on how everything in his or her organization works. If a manager only understands how to use a particular system, it will translate that her or his knowledge is totally restricted to that particular task, yet a leader is supposed to offer guidance and leadership in all the systems or aspects of company operations in the event of a problem. In the case of a system malfunctioning, or any other problem, the manager who has no clue on how the system works will just sit and wait for someone else to come for his or her rescue. If such a manager had known what to do, he or she could have saved valuable time and resources that is normally wasted in that process. The MIS is just one of the whole aspects regarding computing management. Other components referred as computer support for managers are apparently office automation for leaders, including facilities for communication and support for modeling. These components could assist in creating expert systems for the organizational leaders. b) Enhanced communication between managers will improve the performance in an organization This assumption may be right on the basis that effective communication in any organization is the most crucial element when it comes to working as a team. Over a particular time, the top leaders in an organization tend to separate themselves from the rest of the management or employees in that particular organization. This ensues into gap forming between the leaders and other employees in a lower hierarchy, thus resulting into a communication gap, misunderstanding or lack of acceptance of novel ideas. If proper communication among organization leadership is missing, it will subsequently lead to that organization loosing focus and decline in efficiency. c) Owing to Deficiency in relevant information, most managers are operating under this notion With this contention, I would post that this assumption is also misguided. In accordance to Ackoff, it would seem that only particular information is regarded as useful to the managers while others are deemed not useful an...