E.E.
Professor Monica Hubler
ACC564–Accounting Information Systems
01/17/2015
Assignment 1: Information Needs for the AIS
1. Based on your research, assess how corporate leaders may make improper assumptions related to accounting information systems and the related information. Indicate the most negative potential impacts on business operations related to these assumptions. Provide support for your rationale.
Ackoff’s classical analysis of misinformation in management can be applied to todays corporate leaders, forty years later. Today’s corporate leaders have a more rapidly changing environment as Accounting Information Systems (AIS) are constantly being upgraded while leading end users to more reliance as AIS holds the key to several aspects of a business. Improper assumptions can very easily be made as the thoroughness of AIS would breed a certain amount of confidence. The human factor, the design of decision aids, and the complexity of user-friendliness are three improper assumptions that could be made by corporate leaders about AIS (Vasarhelyi, 2012). The level of competency, project participation, and a need for monitoring are all issues of the human factor (Bright Hub Inc., 2012). Competency levels are extremely important when learning a new system. If a team member doesn’t grasp all of the content, their level of competency may hinder the progress of that department. A leader’s misjudgment of that translation can also impede the progress. Project participation from key contributors can also be misjudged as their apprehension to changes or upgrades in the system could cause them more job function difficulty. These two observations would require monitoring as a leader can expect certain translations to materialize, however when dealing with human beings a leader has to be two steps ahead. AIS should be designed for better decision making (Vasarhelyi, 2012). System functionality and use over time will