The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Review

Abstract

The Management Information Systems (MISs) have been displaying considerable diversity during the evolution in the past decades. It comes such a big demand and challenge to draw an overarching picture of the evolutionary development of MISs. By systematically investigating the existing representative literature/research in MISs, especially by analyzing and modeling the MIS concepts, this paper first identifies the crises and challenges the traditional MIS has faced. Furthermore, by applying EBD, a design methodology, the author analyzes how these crises have been addressed, and as a result, how the classical MIS Pyramid is transformed and developed into an intelligenceintegration framework for the understanding of MISs evolution, which is able to not only position various information systems, but also show how these systems are still interrelated in the whole process of the evolution. The two dimensional framework here for MISs is conceptual model based, and different from prior frameworks, is able to describe the overall evolution of management information systems dynamically, rather than just "partially", or "statically". This framework also provides a model applicable to the development of MISs and information technologies, thus it is has meanings not just academia but also practice. The descriptive validity or consolidation of the framework is demonstrated by applying it to published MISs' studies. Future trends and challenges of MISs are also discussed based on the framework in this paper. Zhang / The Evolution of Management Information Systems: A Literature Reviewof MISs, and address these issues and concerns. By systematically investigating the existing representative literature/research in MISs, with an emphasis on analyzing and modeling the MIS concepts, this paper first clearly identifies the crises and challenges the traditional MIS has faced. Furthermore, by applying the Environment-based Design (EBD) methodology, the author analyzes how the crises have been addressed, and as a result, how the classical MIS Pyramid has been transformed and developed into an intelligenceintegration framework for the understanding of MISs evolution, which is able to not only position various information systems in terms of their intelligence and integration degrees, but also show how these systems have been interrelated in the whole process of their evolution. The Concepts of MIS/MISsSince the "discussion of the evolution of the MIS area 1 is greatly facilitated by a definition of the area" (Dickson, 1981), we started our discussion with "what is conceptually a MIS?" Some published definitions of management information system(s) are quoted as the following for further discussion. Classical and modern definitions of MIS/MISsWhen MIS concept was first used in late 1950, the system it represented only had plan and control functions. However, in 1960s -1970s, the expectation of both researchers and practitioners in the business management community had raised as high as a single system for all management requirement, namely ...

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